Lessons from the Beach

We just returned from seven glorious days on Cocoa Beach. The very first night, something occurred that brought back all my fond and not so fond memories of Creative Problem Solving. For the uninitiated, Creative Problem Solving was developed at the University of Buffalo by Alex Osborne and Dr. Sidney Parnes in the early 60’s. Johnson City became involved in the mid 70’s and I got to attend several presentations by Dr. Parnes. The process is divided into 6 stages and each stage is again divided into divergent and convergent exercises. It is thorough, effective and takes a sizable portion of your life. I always thought if you put the Israelis and Arabs together in a room and forced them to follow the process, they would agree to peace just to get out of the room. While not all six stages have to be completed every time, the most common failure in any problem solving attempt, is skipping the first step; Problem Finding. What I still remember most vividly about Parnes’s lecture was the admonition to be sure you were solving the right problem. He claimed, and life has since verified, that much effort is spent solving the wrong problem, and then complaining about how nothing was fixed.
Last Thursday night, as we strolled along Cocoa Beach, a solitary sea gull pulled a fish from the water’s edge. Just as he settled in for a dining treat, down swooped another gull and stole his fish. With a seagull sound of rage he dashed after the first seagull, hot on the feathers of the thief. Within seconds, he caught the miscreant, bit him in the rear and forced the ill gotten gains to be dropped. At that moment he had solved his problem, only he forgot step one of Creative Problem Solving and continued to badger and beat his enemy. Meanwhile, a third seagull slipped in and made off with the fish. (Who seems to be the real looser.)
This would not be a notable story except it all came back to me the next morning as I read the newspaper about our newest war effort. How easy it will be to lose sight of the real problem in Libya and morf it into another national disaster. And then right below it were several stories about how we are broke and can not afford to pay for an educational system that might lead to thinkers that could unbreak us because all the money is going to fight wars that are not solving any of the original problems. And all the time claiming to be the most Christian country in the world while we build a military that can kill every living thing on earth 5 times over and elect people whose rallying cry is cutting services to the weakest and poorest, and justifying breaking long made promises to faithful public servants. Am I the only one whose head is spinning?