Unexpected Links
A "like" by one of my LInkedIn connections highlighted an "interesting" coming together of an assortment of things that (probably) is only "interesting" (or perhaps significant) to me. The reason that it has made its way into the blog is not so much because of the article itself but because it is such a good illustration of things "coming together" in a specific way, for a specific person.
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The Swedish town of Örnsköldsvik is - probably - not that well known outside of Sweden. I guess that for most people it is the equivalent of Auchtermuchty might be for Scots. It has just under 30000 inhabitants and was one of the stops on a tour of Sweden undertaken in 1990 by our Band. If nothing else it does good souvenirs - a pen that we were each given to commemorate our visit is still working and in my jacket pocket!
Another 'highlight' of that particular destination was the billet that we had - but that's another story - and nothing to do with this blog!
When I was (much) younger our family home became decorated with quite a few Dalecarlian horse's - they were the product of a number of visits that my dad made to Sweden as he was, at that time, working for a Swedish company that made cranes for ships - Hägglunds. Apart from that connection through my dad I don't think I had heard of them in any other context.
Currently much of my work is looking at support and logistics of large predominantly military systems. This is a role that has grown to fill the majority of my working life over recent years, but which has its roots in the latter years of the company being part of BAE Systems. It is therefore no real surprise when I spot a link to an article about a new contract for BAE Systems to support army vehicles in Denmark.
What made this slightly more noteworthy for me was that this contract had been won by BAE Systems Hägglunds in Örnsköldsvik.
That particular conjunction would hold little interest to most who spotted the link. For me it was something that jumped out at me in a way that would not have happened had it been, for instance, a link to an article about Lockheed Martin building a new power station is Herten (a real example, plucked at random!!).
The point (yes there is one!!) that was driven home was just how much our - very personal - history determines what we pay attention to. Not a surprise, but even so its something that we will frequently be unaware of simply because - well that's the point.... There is plenty of evidence of cognitive biases that limit our ability to see what is in front of our noses (anybody seen that gorilla yet!!) and yet we continually trip over that particular failing. We continually ignore the 'obvious' simply because we are not expecting to see it.
Conversely we pay far too much attention to those things which are well backed up from our history and experiences. The story about BAE Systems Hägglunds new contract is really of no particular interest to me - but it is now part of my "knowledge" and will exert some influence over my future biases interms of what I deem is "of interest".
It would have done anyway - but, of course, writing this blog entry has further reinforced the effect. Everything that I have previously written has the effect of "pinning down" my thoughts and feelings. In some respects, that is precisely what the blog is about - in other respects it is quite the opposite because in reinforcing one point of view - one perspective - I have lessened the chance of "noticing" the alternatives.
In some other aspects of my life I have pointed out the frequency of incidence of paradox - in particular where some sort of behaviour actively works against the 'purpose' of the behaviour. As in this case where "feeding my ignorance", which you would expect to "reduce" ignorance, actually both increases it (see the quote used as a byline for the blog) and also works against the opportunity to identify the "wrong" in my current store of knowledge.
I can only fall back on the realisation that awareness of the paradox is a pretty good way to transcend it in this instance - and awareness of the fact that lots of seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of memory can find themselves in a very positive conjunction which necessarily draws our attention is a defence against the sirens of the familiar.
