Disingenuous

By R. M. Olson

The over-saturation of disingenuous people permeates every society and demographic tipping scales that harm more than help. They creep, crawl, sneak, lurk and infiltrate everywhere they go. 

 

Challenge your mind and realize this non-fictional threat viewed through the lens of my life experiences in many countries during times of war and peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. M. Olson
• Release date: Jun 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201639761

Book preview

- Table of Contents -

I - Introduction

II - Understanding me

III - Disingenuous nature of people

IV - Construction Life - Part I

V - College Life - Part I

VI - Construction Life - Part II

VII - Military Life

VIII - Defense Contractor Life

IX - Biker Life

X - College Life - Part II

XI - Teacher Life

XII - Brain Cramps

XIII - Language and Communication

XIV - The Land of Is

XV - Giving credence to nonsense

XVI - Not a disingenuous person, you say?

XVII - Solutions

XVIII - Unsolicited Wisdom

Allow me to begin by stating that everything you are about to read does not pertain to everyone you will come across in your life... just most of them.

Unless used as a historical or generic reference, all names, places and dates have been changed to protect the privacy and security of those mentioned... Public figures, excluded.

I

This is not a book about how to climb-the-ladder, be politically correct, popular, or world renowned. This is not about a power struggle between the haves and have-nots nor is it insight into fights between the two largest political parties in the country of your choosing. This is not about how some people can succeed and some cannot, given their silver-spoon status at birth or someone's ever-present tri-level packing crate and tarp combination in the alley of any major metro area around the world. It is not about being a disabled war veteran with substandard care or about being able to fly to another country to get a special medical procedure you want just because you can.

This is not a book about the inequities between someone with mental retardation (yeah, I said it) and someone with an IQ of 160. This is not about the G.O.A.T. arguments of Tom Brady vs. Joe Montana, George Babe Ruth vs. Barry Bonds, or Wilt Chamberlain vs. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. This is not a book containing a lot of analytical jargon, or some deep-meaning philosophical claptrap leading to serious theory on how to fix the world. This is not about religion or politics - two areas I do my level best not to discuss with anyone deemed even close to closed-minded or the type that says, my mind is made up on the subject. Here's some helpful advice: avoid those people.

To be sure, the topics mentioned above are all hot button issues, for someone, somewhere. This book is about the wide-spread state of just being - for millions of people world-wide, this is how life is gone through. Notice I did not say how these lives are 'lived'. You see, living and just being are two different things with different goals and attitudes about life in general and in specific. However, they do share one thing in common: who they will encounter.

In the following pages, you will come across a wide range of topics and life experiences viewed from, what I imagine, is going to be a much different perspective, given my experiences and traveling & picking the brains of people in many different countries and from all walks of life. I do not profess to be the first person to write such a text, but I have yet to come across any piece of literature that says what I am about to say, in the way I am about to say it. It will not be clean, neat or nice. It will not be PC. It may not even be popular...ever. What it will be, however, is honest, direct and relevant.

Now that I think about it more, there will be a power struggle during and after reading this book, but this tug-o-war will not be between you and another person. It will not be between other people as you listen in a controlled environment. The tug-o-war will be in your own mind. Bear in mind that I am not looking to change anyone's point of view, per se, because you are who you are based on decades of life that only you experienced in that time on Earth, in that particular order and in the specific way you experienced it. What I am seeking is to get you to think just a little more. Simply think. Open your mind. Not a hard concept, right? Can you do it without preconceptions of what is right and wrong? Can you do it based on what you know in your heart to be true or right and not what you are told is either of those things? If you know something is the wrong thing to do but choose to do it anyway or just to follow the crowd, aren't you the problem and the creator of the crowd in the first place?

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Can you actually think with an open mind?

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In my experience, the majority of people cannot do it. An inordinate amount of people cannot simply think openly, clearly or without being a know-it-all. This includes men, women and children at all ages, stages of life and stages of development. They do what is expected of them or what is in a job description. They mimic what other people do for a multitude of reasons, be it envy, jealousy, low level of education, lack of cognitive skills, lack of personal direction, lack of personal conviction or there may be a self-esteem issue. They do what they are told with blind obedience (vs. reasoned obedience). In some cases, they do it without thinking. It is simply a reactive impulse. They do what will give them the most pleasure, no matter if there is a better, safer, higher moral or higher reasoned way to do it - while still achieving the same end goal.

Most people say that it is human nature to do things in the easiest and quickest manner possible in order to achieve their desired goal. Was that the immediate, mid-term or long-term goal? Hmm, no one mentioned that part.

II

To better understand my point of view and what you will read in this book, you need to understand more about me. I am from one of the biggest cities in the US Midwest, which is one of the five largest cities in the entire US. I am a product of a strict military family where hugs and kisses pretty much stopped after 3rd grade and did not resurface until I started feelin' all funny around girls in high school. To this day, I will be touchy feely around friends and with my wife (to excess), but when I'm around my immediate family, I abhor anything more than a handshake. Don't get me wrong, growing up, I believe my parents wanted what was best for me and did what they could to achieve that goal, but showing positive, loving emotion between family members was definitely not high on the list, if on the list at all. Put it this way: I pissed Dad off once in 7th grade, for my choice of using a colorful metaphor, and never did it again. Considering the severity of his PTSD, I consider that a very wise move for a 12-year-old!

Being a military family, we moved around a bit, but not nearly as much as when dad was out of the service. From 1989 until my high school graduation in 1996, we moved at least four times that I can remember and I attended five different schools. I remember not caring much about the moving, not because of being uprooted or leaving new friends, but because I knew that both parents were working at least two jobs, each, most of that time. The reason for that, I don't know and never asked because I considered it not the business of a child. Some millennials and post-millennial-aged people will scoff and argue this rationale, but if parents want to share those items, that's up to them to share. They ARE the parents, after all, so all of you that disagree with it can just shut the fu** up.

I was taught to watch, absorb, think, learn and then act. I was taught to not do the dumb sh*t I see people do and try TO do what is right and proper. I had plenty of help in identifying the dumb stuff from the good stuff. I imagine most kids are taught these same things. The stimuli in my childhood were minuscule compared to people now. When I grew up, stimuli came from family, friends, newspapers, local/regional TV stations and magazines. Now, it is simply ridiculous and coming from all sides and through every conceivable source on this and other planets, literally. We won't get into that 20,000-year-old spider web of craziness, but suffice to say, kids today must navigate tougher waters and need to learn to slow things down considerably and use their rationale minds more.

My biggest personal influence was through human interaction and books. I never liked TV much, I read the newspaper almost daily as a kid because I wanted to read better and to get to the funnies in the back of the paper... and to screw up the crossword. That all ended as a freshman in high school when my history teacher forced me to put away the newspaper in his class. I told him the paper was more interesting than him and I didn't need him or the textbook to ace his class. He responded, Mr. Olson, human history is more important than whatever is in today's paper. We, as humans, are destined to repeat the mistakes of everyone's ancestors unless we pay attention to how they screwed up. Those statements always stuck with me, but I choose not to look at ancient history as much as I do recent history. In that aspect, I do not believe that my familial stimuli were a product of my parents' accumulated knowledge. I believe it was an accumulation of the knowledge of my grandparents on my dad's side of the family.

My mom's side was pretty non-existent and I only remember meeting my mom's mom once and she was literally yellow. A yellow human... let that sink in. It was a fairly shocking experience for a kid of a young age of around eight or nine to see someone drinking themselves to death (literally). I never knew mom's dad. My dad's dad was a WWII veteran, survivor of the Bataan Death March, and one of the longest held POWs in the eastern theater while interred at a Japanese hard labor camp. He didn't get any type of fanfare or hype like a late US Senator did because he chose A) not to hire a publicist in order to fantasize his experiences, B) to live in peace, and C) to not make it a political stance. My dad's mom was a midget - or so I thought when I was a kid. My Danish granddad stood about 6'- 5, if memory serves, and my Italian grandma stood a very proud 4'-11 on a great day! I don't remember a lot about her, except for her exceptional cooking, ensuring that everyone was on their best behavior and the smell of cigarettes everywhere in her house.

My parents couldn't have been more different, but do fit an age-old pattern. When they met, my mom was a widow with three young kids and my dad was a highly-decorated, 2-tour Vietnam veteran who would later go on to a 20-year military career, first in the US Marines and then the US Navy. The Vietnam years of his Marine service record is 99% redacted, but when I was 10, a picture surfaced taken by a combat photographer showing him in 1968 or 1969, standing up in an open field, with his helmet at his feet, choking the life out of one enemy soldier with one hand while he is holding his M14 in the other hand and looking out towards more enemy soldiers. He was either 18 or 19 at the time the photo was taken. There is a reason he is, and always will be, the only human I am afraid of on planet Earth. He has literally killed people while looking in their eyes and not knowing anything about them. Scary.

During high school, I always kept that image in mind, always did my best to make my parents proud, never got in any sort of trouble, always made straight As (except for one B, damn it!), and extended my discipline through four years of Naval ROTC, reaching the 2nd highest rank (behind a recently retired US Marine whom I still chat with from time to time on social media). I played four sports, excelling in baseball and didn't get involved with any girls until my junior year. After high school, things got interesting, to say the least. I opted to accept the multiple college scholarships I earned and took that academic free ride to an NCAA Division I school. There, I majored in Construction Management with a focus on engineering and minored in business. My best friend was a year ahead of me in the same program, so I figured, Great! After meeting him in 1994, I am proud to say we are still good friends and would do anything for each other after going through 27 years of pain, joy and everything in between together.

Additionally, with my success in high school baseball, I figured while I was at a Division I NCAA school, I'd try to gain access to the baseball team as a walk-on. After the tryouts, I found out there were 78 walk-ons, but they only one slot needed to be filled on the 25-man roster. I figured I was screwed, but as always, I knew I gave it my best. The next day, I was the 25th man! Imagine the scene in the movie Major League[1] where the character Willy Mays Hays quietly exits the clubhouse, goes outside the stadium and dances when he found out he made the Indians team out of Spring Training when he wasn't even invited to try out in the first place. That was me right outside the Head Coach's office when I was informed that I was selected for the team. I was never guaranteed anything past the first year, but I kept that uniform on for the next four years through plain old hard work and determination! Mighty long odds, I must say.

I graduated and went into the construction world as a junior partner in a new company and played baseball with an independent team. I thought I was really coming up in the world. Yeah.... I was wrong. I ended up hanging up my spikes a year later and the construction partnership died when the market bubble burst in '05. During my time in that industry, starting when I was a young, naïve, dumbass to the conclusion of designing and building projects up