Timely Pattern

The view from the conference room was especially conducive to understanding the topics being discussed. Why would seeing snow covered mountains through broken clouds of varying shades with occasional burst of sunlit detail overlooking a bustling city create such an experience? One explanation - the detail connoted both natural and social order but did not interfere with the discussion because it was in no other way relevant. A nice place for the subconscious attention to rest when it was time to process a comment in the conversation?

Adversarial system, inadvertently or malicously applied - was this the case here? The competing parties vigorously advocated a highly partisan view of their respective positions. The assumption to the visible parties was fairness was served by doing so. Perhaps this made sense for the resolution of conflict. Was its application to anticipating areas of potential conflict a good thing too? Was a hidden interested party manipulating?

This was just such a test. Practical considerations of legal methods suggested that if one was adept at understanding a friendly relationship over time ... with changing circumstances and subject to the same scrutiny as, say, a relationship with a competitor. What if one is not sure how to adquately characterize the participant in the transaction yet? Better to be safe? But at what cost?

The message seemed to hint at just what kinds of methods were appropriate in the friendship discovery process. And, further, what actions to take based on interim results. The training was clear on this point. The context is virtually always critical. The degree varying as a function of the conceptual distance from the explicit (usually) issue.

Yes, the many variations of the friendly pattern ... they all seemed to put a smile on his face. Even when he did not understand one, the mere formulation in his mind's eye was satisfying on some level. He thought out loud in their presence, "Can facts be friendly?" Facts are not a direct product of volition. Or are they?