Never expected it to be this hard. (For me, for the team)

I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Taking a decision, changing path – trying to stand-up in front of… well – what is it? Tyranny?

Over the past few weeks I have repeatedly dreamed of the dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex – it means something like king lizard tyrant; that probably sums-up my situation well.

Stuck in a pond in which I have to play dead, or frozen in motion or else my head is chopped-off. Or, more accurately, I sit here, headless having challenged the Gorgon and lost.

I discovered last week that the strategy used to disempower me – to halt my progress, promotion, development and growth has been used on others. It is quite cunning. It involves taking the system and using it to your advantage – a little like surfing a wave.

In my experience, it was forcing your way on to an interview panel, bullying any dissenting voices and getting your way. Shouting, striking your chest, roaring, whatever it takes and there you go. A little like the folk who are building the South American highway, blasting the Amazon to pieces, one endangered species at a time. The means don’t matter – it is the outcome; Mammon.

Another image that has been spinning around inside my head has been that of daggers. (Irony of the latter-day Caduceus)

Imagine Gulliver lying on the sand with a thousand Lilliputians marching over his belly; stabbing needle-like swords into his eyes, nose and mouth. Pricking, twisting, causing multiple droplets of blood that add-up to a flood.

Imagine not being able to breathe; suffocating inside a system that is ruled by… a lizard tyrant… What do you do?

Head-on collision seems to result in death, alternative strategies the blood-letting – I had considered another alternative, running away as providing some sort of escape, but no, I have been pursued not by the evil one or his cabal of bedfellows, but by my own team, pulling at my heart.

So hard.

So painful.

What is the answer?

Although human sacrifice isn’t something considered within polite society it seems…

Alternatively, if you read enough Kafka you get to imagine that is doesn’t matter if you are wrong or right, if the sword falls, that is your fate.

What would Franz have done?

I have so many historical heroes – imagining their reaction to the situation is overwhelming. Stuck between a rock and a hard place and nowhere to go. Like an engine that has run-dry. Empty of oil and smoking. Smouldering, melting. Disintegrating.

I began this journey with the intention of improving the experience for the many – it seems that the number of variables are greater than I had considered.

Sigh.

Poetic stanza won’t even get me out of this one.

Powerless.

Listless.

Lifeless.

Hollow.

Lost.