1. L.Bear-Self-Improvement
L.Bear-Self-Improvement (by Andrew Guthrie-Dow)
Something was definitely “up” with L.Bear (Little-Bear). He was on a mission, secretive, intently working on his tablet and intently referencing “Influential-Bears in a Human-World”, one of his many self-help-books, When Bear was on a mission it was more akin to “plotting” than anything else. What the mission was, let alone how far along the track to success he had traversed, were all closely guarded and private until the end had been achieved.
Let me first tell you about where Bear worked, and where he kept his most prized possessions. His “office” was a coffee-table with an upper and lower level. On the upper level the only two permanent objects were the remote-control to the wide-screen, and his money-box holding his valuables that he had accumulated – currencies (mostly euros, some dollars), T-Notes, Bitcoin-Keys etc, but mainly gold (in one troy-ounce gold-bars). Around his neck as part of a lanyard were his cards, his pride-and-joy being an American-Express credit card (member since 88). On the lower level were the tools of his trade - tablet, self-help-books, giant-calculator for doing large-calculations, notepads etc. He had no mobile because the keying was too small for him and his big paws, but he could operate a tablet by using his nose to hit the keys.
His modus-operandi was to get what he needed, and only what he needed, from the bottom level and move it to the top and work there, all within grabbing distance of his money box. In his current mission this consisted of the “Successful Bears…” book and his tablet. He would reference the book before spending many minutes scouring the internet. Why this self-help book amongst all his others, many of them classics, we wondered (e.g. “How to Make Friends and Influence People”, “Rocket-Surgery for Bears”, and the slightly worrying “One Hundred Legal and Illegal Ways to Make Money”. After a week of intense activity Bear made an announcement – “I’m expecting an important package from the US” (there was always a whiff of pomposity when Bear announced things). “I’ll explain everything when it arrives, and I think you’ll be impressed”. There was no point in trying to pre-empt this; experience dictated we just had to wait. After another week there was a knock on the door, and the man from FedEx handed us the package. It was the size and shape of a pizza – was Bear going to change his diet and go all American? Of course not.
Before opening the package Bear made a short speech. “Fulfilling everyone’s potential requires not only success (financial or otherwise), but character”. “That’s why I’ve been working to improve my moral dimension- ethics, right-and-wrong etc.”. This was a somewhat surprising announcement from Bear as he never seemed to be in the slightest worried by this in the past. “In my extensive research I found I could do this in two different ways”.
“Firstly, I could change the way I think – learn to consider the moral dimension alongside the financial one in decision making”. “But apparently this takes considerable time and effort, resources we are all short of”. “So, I decided on the second approach – automation”. At this point Bear began unwrapping the package while he spoke. “That’s why I’ve decided to buy a Moral-Compass from the Whammo novelty-company (giant size, all American, designed in Independence-Missouri, manufactured in China)”.
He then freed the compass from its remaining packaging and admired it. “I’m not quite sure how it works, but it comes with full instructions, so when I need to think about these matters I’m fully covered”. What could we do? Impressed would be too soft a description of how we felt about our bear’s problem-solving ability. The Bear was certainly going places, but which ones did slightly concern us.