Birthday Boons for All!

My birthday is finally here, this year on January 16. I'm seriously glad it's not on the 29th, because I was about to bust waiting on it. Unlike others my age, over 40, I love having birthdays. It only means I'm getting older and wiser. Right now, as has been true of recent years, I'm bubbling over with wisdom. I don't know how much wiser a man can be, but I'm willing to find out!

Thank you, dear kingdom, for your many tributes to me on this day of days. Messages of greetings have poured in in recent days, and I know it will be a major task for my servants to open them all and get them in good order for me to peruse later. If you do not receive a personal acknowledgement of your kindness from me, please let this word suffice, that I do appreciate it and wish boons on you and your household.

Closer to home, here within the palace walls, of course the celebration is already at fever pitch. Several of my servants have dressed me in white robes and fetched my royal mount for my annual march through the city. Two of my most trusted lieutenants accompany me today, the dusky Eric the Great, governor of my harem, and Tommy the Eunuch, who keeps an eye on him. The townspeople follow behind, presenting their grievances, knowing that boons will be lavished on all on this sainted day.

Throughout the day there are carnivals, games of sport, and turkey legs for all. It's as good and better than any Renaissance Festival, including the same massive cleavage piled up everywhere, with the plastic ice coolers they sometimes put there in the very center, keeping cool the meat of the goodie. The women of the realm enjoy getting those with their annual gift packs, which also includes the year's calendar with my birthday prominently featured on every page and a coupon for a side of fries with their turkey leg.

The men, away all year fighting my many wars, are brought back five days before my birthday. It is a gladsome time for them, as they become acquainted with the babies their wives gave birth to after they were last home. We tend to have a lot of October babies, great for the pumpkin farms that are all over the countryside. Plus, every child under 1 gets a coupon for a free pumpkin when they're in season, with the price being 50% off for all other kids. So they're happy.

Other boons are distributed. Every year, through the course of the year, I personally "hide" (or "unfollow," not "unfriend") about half of my Facebook friends for various offenses. They may be too rabidly conservative, too sentimental, too prone to cute cat photos, post too many things, too religious, offering adoration to other kings; the list is endless, all of which drives me crazy. But on my birthday, all is forgiven. Everyone is "followed" once again! For at least the next 24 hours. That's only fair.

The parade is about to begin! I must tear myself away from all distractions and give full attention to the high school bands who have worked and struggled all year to pay their way to my palace. I see one coming into view now. The band that came the greatest distance is always first. The first one this year has come all the way from Ukraine. That's thousands of miles, the other side of the world! The kids of that particular school actually had to raise money for three years to get here today! Quite a sacrifice!

And here they come. Let me watch as they pass. They've got a big sign. I can't make it out. It's some oddball language. I assume it says "High School of Whatever," OK, great. Probably the Fighting Putins, since they're always in a pickle with Russia. They're playing some strange song, sounds like a mash-up of "On Wisconsin" and "O Vladimir." The kid on bass drum is about half the size of his drum, a bad look. But there's a couple cute girls toward the back. Their uniforms probably could've been cleaner, spiffier, nicer, but they did their best ... I hope ... I suppose. And there they go, passing out of sight.

I'm so happy for their coming that one of the boons that I shall grant this year shall be "Full Independence for Ukraine!" The men of my realm shall drive the Russians from Ukraine. They shall do their best. At least liberating this one particular high school. How poor these kids look. I'm sending Tommy the Eunuch to distribute coupons for free turkey legs for all. And a free pumpkin when they're in season. It's the least I can do.

The King Of Group Dynamics

I'm taking personal inventory, thinking of my many good qualities. I'm not what you'd call famous, by any stretch. I tend to be able to walk the streets or go to restaurants without people coming up to me for favors. That's good.

But still, the more people who know and respect you, the better. Even though I'm not famous, I am basically known for two things: 1) Writing this blog; and, 2) Being the King of Group Dynamics. Now, lest you think I'm kidding around, I'm not. The fact is, you're at my blog, and I'm the guy who writes it. And the additional fact is, as far as I know, no one else has claimed the mantle of King of Group Dynamics, so I'm it.

Really, if anyone has a more legitimate claim to the title of King of Group Dynamics, I'd love to meet him. But I'm confident there isn't anyone.

Someone might say, what legitimacy do I have to the title? It's a fair enough question, and of course I wouldn't have asked it if I didn't have a good answer. If you look through my posts, I've been writing about Group Dynamics on and off for the last few years. And not only that, but I've been cited in a couple of textbooks (albeit undergraduate) for my "3 Rs of Group Dynamics."

I can't remember precisely how I came up with the 3 Rs. They just came to me, I guess. I knew them, I'm going to say instinctively just based on my dealings with people. So in that sense I was using the 3Rs before I even knew they technically could exist as an expressed concept. But one day -- several years ago -- I needed to do something, some kind of meeting with youth, and I thought, I need to really know what I'm doing or these little bastards will eat me alive!

So I sketched them out, what would become the famous (in certain textbooks) "3 Rs of Group Dynamics." Just as an aside, I really like the expression, because it makes it so definite and authoritative. It doesn't say, "Among the many other Rs of Group Dynamics, I've extracted just three" or "I have my 3 Rs and some other guy has his 3 Rs, and one set of 3 Rs is just as good as any other." It says, "These are the 3Rs of Group Dynamics, and if anyone thinks otherwise, he's an idiot." I almost said asshole but I went with idiot just to be nice.

In case you forgot what the 3 Rs are, you could look it up in my archives, or you could check at your local university bookstore for one of the textbooks, or I could just tell you again. They are: 1) aRrange, 2) Reconnoiter, 3) Ruminate. I've always been a little sensitive about number one, since it obviously doesn't begin with an R. But it's just like aRithmetic in the original 3 Rs. The big difference is that sometimes you see it written 'Rithmetic, but it'd be tough to call my R 'Range. With 'Rithmetic, it's unambiguous that it refers to arithmetic, but 'Range might mean something like "ranging around the room," and that'd be only half accurate.

Getting back to the example of the youth event. I needed to aRrange the room, the environment, so the little bastards wouldn't run roughshod over me. The only Group Dynamics we would've had would've been disastrous. Reconnoitering means paying close attention to what is happening, because you're structuring and guiding the Group Dynamics at play in the moment. You want your purposes to be fulfilled. And you Ruminate both during the moment, which is always in an interplay with Reconnoitering, and later, bringing forth our understandings after the fact. It's amazing, I know, how Ruminating now guides aRranging later! I love the symmetry there!

Confidential to textbook publishers: I know by law you don't have to pay me when you quote the 3 Rs. But don't you think you have at least a moral obligation to throw me a few bucks? Especially with what you charge for the books?