2:6:2

Saturday I have a chat on Skype, so I did my drawing early to compensate. I thought I would have a go at getting my nose in amongst the proffusion of tiny wild flowers about outside. No idea on names, but they are certainly attractive.
I was talking with the misses in the week about the way people were relating to each other in one of her many voluteer things. She said one of the women in her English course mentioned a principle of 2:6:2. In any group of people the proportion will break down in that way. So if you are in a group of 11 there will be two who you get on well with, two you can barely stand to talk to and 6 neutral. Obviously it depends on your point of view and other issues where you are in relation to anyone else in any group.
Even if one of the bad element leaves the group, the proportion will be maintained as one of the neutrals will become suddenly less tolerable. Likewise, if one of those you get on with leaves, a neutral person will suddenly seem more tolerable and take the place nearer to you. My wife said she would be happy to just mix with the 2 and ignore the rest. But the problem is while you are getting on in the little set with your head in the sand, the two you don't get on with sway the six undecideds into their way of thinking and life becomes more difficult for you in the group. You have to work on maintaining the status quo as each tiny issue arises or things become intolerable. You must have some confrontation to avoid major conflict.
During the ten years I have been doing the volunteer work at the school near our home there has only ever been one boy I found to be very twisted. Something like the chap in america. There was a sense of him manipulating others and deliberately trying to disrupt the activity in a strange way. I don't believe I ever let him get away with it. I have always found the best teachers to be those that are strict but fair. My least favourite teachers are soft and have class favorites. These incidentally usually become unpredictable and break down.
I remember one tiny incident where everybody was helping out to prepare for something and I asked the chap to go and get some water. He was very clever at ignoring this kind of thing, he would look at someone else nearby in the pretence that they had been the one spoken to. He walked away, but I followed him and tapped him on the shoulder and asked him again handing him the bucket. His method of pretence was detroyed and I got my bucket of water. The teacher commented on this later saying she had noticed this kid being in possesion of strange behavior modes and was glad to see me confront the situation, she also hoped (as I did myself) that more people would confront him on them. I don't know how he learnt these twists in his character, but I am sorry to say they will probably not be removed easily.
I guess tiny little events occur every day in our lives that can have major repurcussions later, especially in childhood, and it is our responsibility within any group we find ourselves in to confront those "bad" elements while they are still small. "Nip in the bud" is not just an expression, that minor involvement, "the finger in the dyke" will never get media coverage and may never be told of, whereas "the straw that broke the camels back" and "the worm that turned" are up our noses every day in the media. The 2:6:2 theory of the bad 2 changing the 6 is surely at work in groups with bullies remaining unbullied and the weak undermined, but it is also busily eating up mental energy within each of us as we make decisions each day, and anybody that manages to accumulate a bad eight is not going to be fun to work with.

Meanwhile, the air outside is unconcerned and truely balmy as dusk falls and everything changes.