Removes/Creates Obstacles?

Another Jenius "Thankee!" to Janine Mendes-Franco for slipping Me into Global Voices Online again. Someday they'll catch her doing that and there'll be hell to pay...

I encountered the phrase "the path of least resistance" several times over the past few days. It just seemed to keep popping up in front of Me, which I have learned is not an accident. There's a reason when these types of "accidents" happen repeatedly and rather than shrug it off to mere serendipity, I figured it was time I sat down and looked long and hard at this.

Having taken care of the personal aspects of "the path of least resistance," (highly applicable to My daily endeavors at this point), I mulled the phrase's larger significance. (Go ahead: I'll pause while you do so as well...) 

Here's what came up from My mulling, as jotted on an index card:

---It is merely human nature.

---It involves systems, which includes rewards, gains, punishments and losses.

---Whoever creates resistance is seeking to minimize his/hers for personal gain.

Nothing earth-shatterringly new. Jenius, not Genius. But it does provide a framework for analyzing--and understanding--what Our Island goes through with its so-called "leadership."

Point 1 plus Point 2 lead to understanding that what people do is largely a function of comfort and what they can gain--or avoid losing--is a central motivator of their activities. It's basically encapsulated in the "What's it in for Me?" attitude. But Point 3 lets Us understand the difference between true leadership and the insipidly cretinous version We tolerate daily. A true leader removes obstacles for a greater good; a cretinous worm masquerading as a leader creates obstacles that mainly provide personal gain.

Again, Jenius, not Genius. But as a rule of thumb, a simple marker for measuring the actions of Fools of all stripes, it works quite well. It is, in fact, a bullshit detector (patent pending.)

Take the next "major" news item or the next "important" press conference about some political move, economic program or industrial sabotage--er, I mean strategy and apply the "Removes or creates obstacles?" metric. Don't listen to the gibberish the airhead calls "explaining": Use your common sense to analyze if there's obstacles being swept away or dropped like boulders on a garden path. You'll know.

And don't think you can fool your gut. You can sit there and spout praise for The Jellyfish governor or the Larval Jellyfish running against him, or for the Fool of your wrong choice, but once you apply the Removes/Creates Obstacles metric, your praise--if you choose to keep spouting it--will ring so very hollow to your own ears.

And at that point, no one else's ears matter...do they?

The Jenius Has Spoken.