Failure to Meta

A scrub's attempt to figure out the meta of life

[failuretometa]

Illusion of Control

Usually when people speak of the illusion of control it's technically more in the context of Kung Fu Panda, but this is a consistent way to get anyone under your thumb. Promise them a glimpse of potential benefit or expectation, and you'll usually be able to get them to do anything without actually holding up your end of the bargain.

"We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it." - 1984, George Orwell

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Failure to Wincon

Life is like a game - the worst part is realising that you're not the player, but the pawn.

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What Doesn’t Kill You

Let's just get this out of the way - justifying your logistical screw-ups, anti-social behaviour, or consequences on somebody else because of something you hold the responsibility for (and failed to meet its requirements) with a blithely overused "shit happens" quote is a shitty dick move. If your plan for progress is to endlessly wear everyone down like stones against a grinder and hope that you find enough diamonds from the mountain of basket cases you're going to end up producing, don't be too surprised when the other basket cases supersede you by sheer force of number.

(There's also the fact that the AIDS virus doesn't kill you, but weakens you to the point where even weak pathogens can pose life-threatening danger, thereby creating a counterexample to "what doesn't kill you" which is bandied about like universal truth. But honestly, the vengeance prospect is a lot more satisfying.)

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Failure to Construct

The immediately recent political climate aside, argumentation and rationale have become a lost cause in postmodern social interaction. Nobody wants to sit through a lecture or jump through hoops to achieve greater understanding when you can toss a humorously captioned image and get more attention, likes, and shares that way.

After all, a picture says a thousand words... and each one of those thousand words say "NERD!".

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You Only Live Once

I don't know when or how the fact that your existence is a single instance of functioning phenomenon has devolved into a ridiculously reckless method of living. If anything, being willing to treat your life as disposable merely encourages other vested interests to also treat you as such. Not to say they aren't already doing that.

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Failure to Walk

"Footprints in the Sand" is a commonly used religious motivational parable that gets my goat due to several reasons. It's overly utilised, inherently trivialises personal tributlations, and ignores other theological issues just to make a point. It's a cheap way to explain away or ignore human error, poor happenstance and underlying problems, using the premise that an almighty, all-loving being noticed, thereby invalidating any sort of negative feedback or critical thinking.

That also bring us to the other issue with this train of thought - namely, the fact that the same inclusive entity also brought along the people who possibly contributed to one's present situation in the first place. If the "footprints in the sand" parable is intended to vindicate the person it's directed at, the underlying theological principles effectively apply this to everyone around that person, including the people antagonising said individual. Boiled down to its core, the story isn't much different from other similar fables that carry a subtly worded, veiled "suggestion" for the recipient to have an attitude change and/or assume all responsibility... or else.

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Question Authority...?

In the past, the unchallenged sanctity and opaque mode of operations for authority was not only considered the standard, but the law. You either accepted your lot of leadership, or spoke out in dissent and received furious retribution as a result. Today, given that the general citizenry tends to be more informed and capable of critical thinking, this sort of attitude doesn't fly so easily since more people are aware of systematic abuse and privilege. For once, the individual is encouraged to take action.

Of course, authority still holds most of the cards in the deck. What authority can't handle, they'll direct it to bureaucracy and the chain of command, where it gets lost in a tidal storm of paperwork and being on hold. Not only does it look good for public relations ("We're totally open to feedback! We listened; honest!"), it turns the responsibility of resolving problems in the system back to the user, because the only thing they "promised" was an avenue to provide feedback. It's not like they have a reason to actually respond, or consequences for failing to do so.

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Failure to Satisfy

The ubiquitous usage of devices hasn't improved the opinion that authority figures and parents generally have of youngsters. Never mind that it's necessary, but a child exposed to electronics and mass media obviously requires a "life lesson" moment to school him against consumerism and self-importance.

What everyone overlooks, though, is that not being satisfied with what you have is something that is built in by default and upbringing. Not only is this encouraged from an academic/statistical perspective, but if you fail to be better than what you already are, people demand and enforce the right to treat you like dirt. (Of course, they immediately start backpedalling when you devolve into a gibbering basket case, but it's not like their constant influence or coercion had anything to do with it, right? "Two hands to clap"? Never heard of it!)

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Two Sides

The problem with there always being two sides to everything (or more, should you choose to pursue that road) is that accuracy, application and relevance might not matter at all - all you need is sufficient resources, influence and clout to assert yourself. Once you've cemented that position, woe betide anyone who crosses your path.

The Latin inscription is Google Translatese for "in authority we trust".

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Failure to Dream

I first came across "Don't let your memes be dreams" from a list of recommended videos after YouTube detected me watching Hearthstone-related content, before later learning it was from Shia LaBeouf's video - which attained its own notoriety in the same way that LazyTown songs have: incessant repetition and editing via online dissemination.

But loosely connected references to popular culture aside, "don't let your dreams be memes" is pretty relevant advice if you think about it. There are two sides to fame, and if you're not on the side that wins you support and resources, the other side can be relentlessly cruel. Authority in general detests idealism with a fiery fervor since it runs the most risk of changes to the status quo, and communities of peers can be very hit and miss at times since we still operate according to rankings of "who's the most popular, charismatic or shocking". The way people - especially online - can turn on you, sometimes obscurity really is the best form of security.

Or to take a quote from Despair.com: "Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world, because there's nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams."

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No “I” in “TEAM”

There's no "WE" in "TEAM" either, but why let semantics get in the way of a saccharine, overused analogy?

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Failure to Try Your Best

"Try your best" hasn't made a lot of sense to me - partially because of the semantics in pronouns as illustrated above, but also because of its usage as a veiled warning. "Try your best" doesn't sound as harsh as "Perform, or suffer the consequences", but because it sounds slightly more forgiving, the person who says it often lays an implicit claim to being upset if you happen to fail meeting expected standards. i.e. "I was less punishing in my demeanour; how dare you not achieve the expectations I didn't explicitly declare beforehand!"

This supposed "less critical" vibe of "try your best" has also come under fire for being too forgiving towards millennials, who apparently have been brought up under a pampering, mollycoddled cavalcade of encouragement and certificates of participation. Therefore, the suggestion that one's personal best is enough is considered to be too kind, especially since it implies that "personal best" is defined on one's own terms and discourages further effort.

It really doesn't matter in any case - those terms were never yours to define to begin with. There isn't any "your best", just what others think it should be.

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Wasting the Mind

The original working caption for this Mehtivator was "A mind is a terrible thing to waste. The stains get everywhere!"

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Failure to Linearity

Modern videogames are often bemoaned as having close to no challenge or difficulty, due to the need for greater inclusivity necessitated by a larger playerbase. Bosses are gimped, sidequests are given away, and rewards pander to the player's sense of self-esteem. This has caused considerable backlash from gamers who consider themselves a cut above the rest - including criticism against Nintendo for having a "family friendly" image in game content and difficulty, to independent games being lauded for "returning to old school" (and by that, it usually involves nebulous instructions, obscure hints, irreparable-points-of-no-return sidequests, etc.).

I get that ideally, you want some form of challenge in order to have a sense of achievement and make the sensation of catharsis all the sweeter. But pragmatically, this isn't always the ideal to aspire to. There's a reason why clicking and idle games are big on mobile phones - having to put in effort for grinds and experience is time-consuming, roleplaying games being a frequent offender. I'd really rather not spend hours of what time I have to realise, possibly days or weeks later, that a benign decision I made earlier effectively wasted hours of gameplay.

I'm not saying give players an auto-win button from the get go, but masking robotic-level precision, a lack of player instruction, poorly balanced difficulty behind "the experience" does not constitute game design. When it comes to physical, collectible card games, it makes sense to collect and purchase the better cards based on what's considered good in the meta, rather than constantly buy random assortments and hope for a situation where the weaker cards become viable. If obtaining information and making the best decision from it is considered logical for physical games, why is it such a sin for virtual ones?

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Be the Change

Assigning personal responsibility to someone else is a bit similar to giving a Facebook like. It appears encouraging (thus presenting a good image for your fellow encouragers, and is unlikely to invite scrutiny), and requires very little effort on your part aside from a pat on the back. In some cases, you're even allowed a rebuttal if the person you're telling to be the change isn't convinced.

What the phrase ignores - possibly intentionally - is the issue of elephants in the room. People generally aren't receptive to change, especially in organisational contexts. Stories about how people have tried to affect positive change in their workplace or social environment are plentiful, and the same goes for their failures. The truth is that while people want you to change, the enthusiasm ends as soon as it starts affecting them, and then limits and boundaries are placed on just how much change you're allowed to be. This continues to the point where any attempt at change on your part becomes ineffective and toothless, and you're no better off than before, aside from a new reputation for being a nitpicky troublemaker. Ultimately, the message boils down to "Thanks for trying. Assimilate or leave. It's not like we'd be significantly affected no matter what you choose."

You can be the change you want to be - everyone else will be making sure that over time, you won't want it anymore. Then you can join them in the ranks of the disaffected.

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Failure to Report

"We figure that eventually, the complainant will receive enough blows to the head to either get the message, or suffer memory loss from the blunt force trauma and forget the problem exists."

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Comparing Yourself

Every so often, when you're in the midst of stressing out over your position and lot in life, someone will waltz by and tell you "Comparing yourself with others won't make you happy," or some variant of this remark. If you're (un)lucky, it may even surface in the form of a pointed question: "Why are you so obsessed with comparing yourself with others? Nobody else cares!"

The noble intention of this admonition is to prevent paralysing doubt in oneself, and that is admittedly important - but it makes very little sense when the same people who tell you this are the exact same people who will compare you against other people at every possible opportunity, given the chance. Parents will compare you to your classmates. Peers will compare you to other flashier individuals who provide better first impressions. Superiors will compare you to some apparently successful individual who you've never ever heard of, and bemoan why you're not like them.

The only point at which people actually stop comparing you is when you begin expressing negative feedback, such as worrying about grades or being self-depreciative. Suddenly comparisons won't matter, and the general insinuation that you aren't good enough promptly changes to an accusation that you're the one who's obsessed, and clearly not all the other people around you who influenced, coerced and encouraged that pressure you never asked for. (And guess what, you're not allowed to make comparisons between them and other more-accomplished individuals either. Go on, just try it out on any parent.)

What people want is the privilege of comparing you against others from a perspective of superiority - but none of the cost, mental baggage or detriment to your well-being that comes along with it.

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