The Loch Ness Monster Monster
Everything I’m about to report is true. You’ll realize that, because you can’t make this stuff up.
Some years ago I encountered a guy in Mensa (which I joined a long time ago to see if I could get in and then promptly asked, “What on earth am I doing here?”—it is a world class victimization group) who was the self-appointed chairman of the Bay Area Loch Ness Monster Study Group, or some such thing, an official Mensa interest group. I wrote to him asking how he could be serious if he was supposed to be so smart.
He immediately wigged out. He questioned my ancestry, credentials (claimed that I was lying about all of my degrees and awards), and threatened to have “the 50,000 members of my group overrun you with emails and calls so that you can’t live a normal life!!” Imagine what would have happened had he really over-reacted!
I left that hair trigger alone, until a year or so later when the guy who had made the most famous photos of the monster died, and admitted on his death bed that it was all a hoax, AND displayed the toys he had used for the trick shot. Authorities confirmed that he was telling the truth.
Being somewhat perverse, I wrote back to the Bay Area Grand Monster Wizard and asked what his group would do now, would they study the toys, or would they simply suspend activities? (I believed then and do now that his group is even less likely to be corporeal than the thing supposedly in the lake.) He wrote back the most extraordinary message.
He told me that the toys were obviously planted, that the dying man made no such admission, and that this was a conspiracy to end searches for Nellie (the monster has a nickname). Who would conspire to protect a monster, I wondered. He was aghast that I could be so stupid as to not realize this. I was aghast, but at something quite different.
This guy needed desperately to believe what he had invented for himself, so he had to make it so even it if weren’t. He was enslaved to his fantasy.
Many of us proceed through life defending positions that aren’t true, or were true once and not now. After all, we trusted that not going into the water for a full hour after eating would save us from cramps and certain death. I remember how we waited for those final agonizing five minutes, the difference between sinking and swimming. We believe things about ourselves, our lives, our clients, our approaches that sometimes become so calcified that they achieve an inappropriate solidity.
The Chevrolet Nova did not fail in Spanish-speaking markets because its name means “no go” in Spanish. The number of people alive today is not greater than the total number of people who have ever lived. The Great Wall of China is not the only man-made object visible from space. (It’s barely visible.) The flush toilet was not invented by Thomas Crapper.
Maybe I’ll stop here.
We all need to examine our belief systems, about ourselves, our profession, our clients. “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. I believe we’d do well to follow his advice.
And I’ll bet you’d have to show him a monster before he organized a study group about it.
© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved.
Luke
Do you put your religion in that category as well? And if not, why not?
Alan Weiss
You sound like you’re posing some kind of test I have to answer for an instructor.
I see miracles every day, in birth, redemption, people helping each other, physical beauty, wonderful music, art—the mystery of life. Perhaps you’ve missed that part.
I’ve never seen any evidence of a monster beneath the Loch.
Simple as that. Next time you want to pose a question like that, I’d suggest you use some courtesy. Or perhaps you’re a member of the Greater Bay Area Loch Ness Monster Pursuit Group?
Mark Cioni
Alan,
You should be aware that the monster’s nickname is “Nessie” and I hear the Mensans are fairly prickly about that.
On the other hand, we used to hear “Nellie” all the time from Keith Jackson on Sat afternoons…I liked that monster better 🙂
Alan Weiss
“Nessie,” you’re right. That’s what happens when I don’t renew my membership in the Greater Bay Loch Ness Monster……
iair
These are they guys that play with dungeons and dragons and other mythical creatures right?
On another note, why do people feel compelled when challenged or even questioned on something to personally attack you, your antecedents, etc. Is that their way of making themselves feel better? I have seen this time and again both personally and to other people. Crazy!
The Mensa guy seems like a real winner.
Alan Weiss
Mensa and winner are oxymorons. Mensa and “real winner” are synonyms.
People who can’t build an intellectual argument or who try to defend a porous position resort to challenging you with “Well you do this or believe in that, how is that different?” It’s the intellectual equivalent of “so’s your old man”!
iair
Hah! Indeed!