How Not to Treat a Colleague

Today I won’t be writing about violin playing. So if you’re looking a little gem to help you with your up-bow staccato or your double-third playing, you’ll just have to wait for another day – or two.

Now, a few weeks ago I did a very daft and un-clever thing. I wrote what I thought was a good, instructional newsletter behind a little anecdote. The problem was, there were real identities in the story, and they were way too flimsily camouflaged.

No, I just didn’t think, when I went back and added some details of place and time, that they turned what was a very innocuous missive into an extremely discomforting betrayal of trust.

Ethical thinking is quite abstract, and requires advanced reasoning; the foundation of which, however, is a concern extending beyond self-interest.

It’s not the kind of thinking we’ve been seeing from our politicians or our captains of finance and investment. Well, it isn’t always present with me, either, I’m sad to say.

Often, as in my case, it is not an understanding of ethical law that is the problem. The problem is a lack of global awareness that would see that all the mental ‘programs’ we possess are up and running when they are needed.

When one of those programs – it could be memory in a concert, it is ethical thinking when writing about recent history – is not up and running when the need is clear and present, watch out.

Well, it is fortunate in my case that my ‘victims’ will not suffer materially from my error. The disappointment and confusion they must feel is enough.

The same cannot be said of our nation’s elected officials in the last 30 years. Both sides of the isle have betrayed the public’s trust egregiously. And we will pay with surrendered civil liberties and diminished quality of life for quite a while as a result. And if the halls of government could be scrubbed clean today.

All the Best,

Clayton Haslop