EMOTIONAL REGULATION - PART I: BLUNT TOOLS

November 27th, 2019

 

 

Emotional regulation is the key to getting yourself to do any of the grand, lofty or interesting things that you think about.  But more on that later.

 

In the meantime, this is not an introduction, but just a few quick and dirty tricks that allow you to poke your own brain in the right spot with the right screwdriver in order to get things moving.  This is not a full tool kit, but the sort of nail, hammer and saw that you give someone in shop class who wants to make a box.  We aren’t building Noah’s arc here… at least not yet.

 

We often don’t feel like doing the things that we know we should do.  This insanely frustrating little paradox is at the heart of emotional regulation, and in order to move this boulder of an issue, some blunt tactics can do wonders.

 

 

Think of the situation when you’re feeling low-energy and your down in the dumps.  Then someone comes into the room all excited and wants to put loud music on and celebrate, and the reaction of your whole being is “I can’t deal with this right now.”

 

This is the sort of blunt rudeness that often pays to apply to one’s self.

 

Feeling down.  Listen to you favorite up-beat music on full blast and see if you don’t start feeling better.

 

Doing this in public or with roommates or family members around can be unproductively painful, but as an experiment in solitude, it can be a revelation to think back on the state of one’s mind 15 minutes or half an hour in the past and realize that things feel better.

 

If this happens, it’s called a state change.

 

And we can push them to happen by manipulating external influences.  Think of a massage, and how it’s pretty difficult to feel miserable after a good one. 

 

Running around the block when angry or low energy can bring us back to more productive and safer baseline.

 

Even writing an angry letter and throwing it away is an effective tool for managing dangerous emotions that are prone to damage relationships. 

 

Notice how all of these suggestions are either using the body in some way or manipulating our external circumstance in order to achieve an internal change.

 

This is our first point of entry into regulating our emotions so that we behave in ways that are ultimately more beneficial to future versions of ourselves.

 

As we gain proficiency and understanding, our abilities move from the external, to the internal where it’s possible to regulate emotions directly using our thoughts, but for those who can look at their past whether near or long term and see a trend of emotion-fueled mistakes, the sorts of blunt tools described here can be an invaluable first step.

 

 

THE SUBTLE ART OF SECOND GUESSING YOURSELF

November 26th, 2019

 

As we stumble forward into new and unknown ventures, we walk a fine line between two problems.

 

We either second guess ourselves too much and get stuck – paralyzed without any whiff of confidence or courage to move further.

 

Or it’s the opposite.

 

We barrel on forward with potentially suicidal bravado.  In this case, the world of psychology refers to that bravado as the Dunning-Kruger Effect.  It’s applied when people think they are way better at something than they actually are in reality.

 

The duality of this problem is remarkable.  It’s as though most of us go from paralysis to a full sprint with no gears in between.  There’s an analogy here to be drawn to inertia and physics.  Have you ever tried to move something like a couch or a dresser and it just won’t move at all.  You put your shoulder into it and put you feet against the wall and push and push and then all of sudden it shoots away from you and you crash to the floor.

 

In physics this phenomenon is described as the difference between static friction and kinetic friction.  Simply put, when two things are touching and not moving, the friction between them is usually much higher than if they are touching, but moving against one another.

 

As for our fear of taking a chance, it’s as though that fear functions like a pressure cooker, and once we finally decide to take that chance, make that move and do something, the pressure cooker blows and we shoot off in a not-so-effective direction and eventually crash.

 

We’re all guilty of this, even if time needs to be traced back to our literal first steps, when we barreled forward on a couple of pudgy pins and fell flat on our own face.

 

But here’s the catch.

 

One side of this issue is far better to be guilty of than the other.

 

It’s much better to think you’re great and barrel forward than it is to remain paralyzed with fear and inaction.  The person guilty of bravado that actually results in doing something will learn something when reality rushes up and whacks them in the head. 

 

Whereas, the paralyzed person allows no opportunity for reality to give them a quick sharp lesson.  And for people who remain paralyzed for years, they risk getting to the end of their life and only having reality teach them the mistake of inaction then, when it’s too late.

 

Considering everything, it is good to second guess yourself.  It can create humility, and that perspective can help you see details that might go missed if you’re too confident to notice.  But too much second-guessing and you’re a goner.

 

The subtle art of this is simply trying to stay in the middle. 

 

Just keep moving.  That’s most important.

 

But don’t go too fast.

 

and remember to keep your eyes open.

 

but most importantly:

 

Don’t stop. 

 

Because life won’t wait for you.

LINES & NETS

November 25th, 2019

 

Cast out a line, and you might catch a fish.

 

 

Drag a net and you have dinner and money to spare from the rest you can sell.

 

 

Each effort we make falls on a spectrum between a line and a net.  Write a short story and send it out for publication and you’re fishing with a line.  Maybe a couple lines.  You are hunting for one taker.  Maybe two.  But strangely, the ultimately goal is to capture the attention of far more people.

 

But take that same story and put it on a personal website, and share the website with people…

 

and there’s virtually no limit to the number of people that can visit that website and read that story.  In this way, the website is a bit like a net.  The avenue of distribution fundamentally shifts the possibility of exposure.

 

Tweets fall on the same place on the spectrum.  A passing thought, if merely captured with a few lines of text can then be sent out into the world and net the attention of hundreds if not thousands of people.

 

But left to the dark confines of a paper diary, or worse still, the roiling evaporation of the busy mind and it’s likely that only one person will ever know that thought and… eventually, forget it.

 

As different technologies emerge, they present opportunities on this spectrum between lines and nets.  Lately, the emerging technologies have been geared more towards the net, as it’s far better oriented towards the group, which is the prized catch of any social media platform.

 

The negatives of technological skew in the direction of the net is now commonplace as it’s spoken about constantly and analyzed  ad nauseum.

 

But for the individual, it can be an invaluable tool to spread the word of one’s work, one’s art and one’s message.

 

 

Just yesterday, Tinkered Thinking casually tweeted a thought that resonated with over 1,500 people, with 500 of them deciding to follow Tinkered Thinking.

 

Slowly, the Tinkered Thinking experiment spreads that way.

 

But just imagine how slow this process would be if there was no twitter, if there was no internet, no website and podcast. 

 

How would all these thoughts get to you?

 

 

What are the odds that you never would have found these words, this platform, and these questions that Tinkered Thinking poses to you?

 

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: A NICE PLACE

November 24th, 2019

 

 

A tiny plume of smoke rose each time the hot soldiering iron touched the circuit board.  Lucilius leaned back from his work, the suspicion of completion settling down on him.  Footsteps accompanied a shadow from the bright outside and Lucilius looked to see a friend materialize from the bright blind.

 

“Whatchya working on Lucy?”

 

Lucilius smiled at his friend.  “You gotta check this out.”

 

Lucilius moved around his work table and swiveled two lazyboys around, recliners that were heavily wired. 

 

“Here, sit in this one.”

 

Lucilius’ friend nodded, looking at the contraption and then sat down and settled in.  Lucilius handed him a helmet that was leashed with more wires.

 

“Where we going Lucy?”

 

“You’ll see.”

 

The two put on their helmets and then Lucilius flipped a switch.  Instantly the two found themselves standing in Lucilius’ garage.  His friend looked at him. 

 

“What happened?”

 

“Look around,” Lucilius said.  He watched his friend glance around at the garage, then bump his shoulders.

 

“Everything’s the same, but like we were sitting in those recliners a second ago.”

 

His friend paused. An unsettled look of confusion tainting his look. “How’d you do that?”

 

Lucilius smiled.  “We’re still sitting in those chairs.”

 

His friend looked at him, suspicious.  He looked closer at things.  He look at his own hands.  He sniffed the air.

 

“Get out.”

 

“No, seriously, I built a simulation.”

 

“Are you kidding, this is unreal,” he said.

 

“Well that’s sort of the point,” Lucilius chuckled, watching his friend pick up objects, looking at the details, squinting as though he might see pixels or something.  Lucilius went to his table of electronics and started fiddling with one of the circuit boards while his friend continued to wander around the garage, as though he were looking for some poorly rendered part of the simulation. 

 

It was as though the man were a kid again, investigating every little detail of the world around him, as though it had secrets that it might share, details that he might discover.  After a time the man stood up from his investigation, realizing that he hadn’t looked at Lucilius’ garage in real life with this much detail, and that he probably wouldn’t be able to notice mistakes anyway.  He looked at Lucilius.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Lucilius had his tongue clamped, sticking out as he concentrated.  He touched a soldiering iron to one last piece of a circuit board and then sat back in relief.  He turned to a monitor and tapped out a command on a keyboard.  The screen flooded with processes.

 

 

“Yes, ok, it’s working.”

 

“What’s working?”

 

“Sit in the recliner.”

 

“Again?”

 

“Yea, you’ll probably notice the difference with the next one.”

 

Lucilius’s friend sat in the recliner and looked around for the helmet.  He grabbed it without Lucilius’ help and put it on.  Lucilius watched the processes on the screen until they came to a stop.  Then he sat down in his own recliner, put on the helmet and flipped the switch.

 

Instantly, the two found themselves standing in the garage, looking at the recliners.

 

“I thought you said this one was different.”

 

“It is.  You’ll notice it in a moment,” Lucilius said, making his way to his work table, tapping away at the keyboard and reading output.

 

His friend meanwhile simply stood, looking around squinting.  “Something is different,” he said.  Lucilius glanced up with a smile, watching his friend slowly realize.

 

“It’s like I can . . .feel more.”  The man looked at his own hands as though he simultaneously wondered what they were and couldn’t separate from the overwhelming sensation of their existence.  That cloud of tingling radiating from his limbs.  The shape of it seemed to diffuse, as though he wouldn’t even be able to tell the shape of his own body if he were to close his eyes.  And then he did it.  He closed his eyes.

 

“Whoah.”

 

“What are you getting?”  Lucilius asked.

 

“It’s like I can…. I can feel the room around me.  And when you talk it’s like I don’t just hear it, it’s like I can feel the thought rumble up before you even make a sound.”

 

Lucilius glanced back at the computer screen.  Processes had stopped. 

 

“Ok, next one,” Lucilius said.

 

“Again?” his friend asked, still puzzled and amazed by the subtle shift that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

 

“Yep.”

 

The two sat in the recliners, put on their helmets and Lucilius hit the enter button.

 

Instantly the two found themselves standing in the same garage, looking at the empty recliners.

 

“Whoah, what’s going on here Lucy? It’s like I can feel everything I see.. and taste all of it.”  The man looked at his own hands and then at the table that Lucilius was taking a seat at.  Lucilius began typing away.

 

“I can feel which keys you’re pressing.  Lucy this is getting trippy.  I’m honestly not really sure where I am in all of this.”

 

Lucilius smiled.  “Just float your cloud-of-an-experience over to that recliner.”

 

“Again? We’re gonna do this again?”

 

Lucilius chuckled.  “We’re just getting started.”

 

Lucilius’ friend sat in the chair, and each time he found his eyes open again, it was as though he dissolved a little more into the space around him, along with Lucilius.  Even the floor and walls of the garage, and all the equipment Lucilius had, seemed to be less in its own place than it was somehow connected to everywhere else.  Every few times they entered a new simulation, Lucilius sat for a minute in meditation to gather himself, all the while his friend slowly felt as though he were losing his mind, the only anchor now being Lucilius, who seemed to understand, with some sort of deep confidence where they were and where they were going.  To his friend, reality felt as though it were melting and being drawn in towards the two of them as though the light of their very consciousness were like points of gravity.  Soon they no longer sat in recliners, but merely existed in position, and the cold rigid hardware of the equipment gave way to a structure of light that Lucilius manipulated at will, each time, forming a connection between the two friends until finally they popped into a very deep simulation, one that was experienced as almost pure light, where language barely still existed, but only as thought between the two. 

 

“How deep are we Lucilius?”

 

“I’m not sure.  I lost count.  I’ve never gone this far before.”

 

“Is there any further to go?”

 

“We could keep going forever.  But I think this marks a kind of elbow in the curve.  I can hold it together this far, but beyond this, I just don’t know.  Maybe if I had a stronger meditative practice I could bring us farther and back but I’m just not sure what’s beyond this point.  I don’t know if I’ll have the conceptual ability to reverse if we go.  The mere thought of simulations and how to stop manifesting new ones, all that -I think- will collapse into a perpetual process, and I don’t think we’ll have any sense nor ability to stop it.”

 

“It’s so peaceful though.”

 

“Yea, it is, that’s why I built it.  I thought it might be. . . nice to come here.”

 

“Let’s go.”

 

“Into a deeper simulation you mean?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You realize what that means right?”

 

“I do, but if we go back, we’ll go about our regular lives, and we’ll probably die one day.  And you can spend that whole time trying to be present, even though each moment is passing by - dying as it fast as it comes up.  But here, it’s as though you’ve found a way to crack a moment open and dive down into it.. . .

 

 

and if we keep going, it’s as though we’ve found a backdoor to eternity.  It’s as though instead of trying to outlive time, you’ve figured out a way to pause it, here in this place that you’ve created.”

 

“But we’ll have no way of returning.”

 

Lucilius felt the ponderings of his friend radiate throughout all of reality.

 

“Whether here or there, we are always stuck in the present.  But this is a gift you’ve created, one that gives me the chance to truly appreciate a single moment, forever.  Maybe no one has ever had this chance, and I don’t want it to slip by.”

 

“Ok,” Lucilius said.

 

“Let’s go.”

 

THE GULF

November 23rd, 2019

 

 

Perhaps the most salient feature of any person is whether or not they keep their word.

 

This simply means that a person’s actions are in harmony with the things they say.

 

 

It goes without saying that people who do not strive to achieve this harmony are less trustworthy. 

This gulf between words and actions determines to a huge degree our reputation.  The larger that gulf, the harder time we will have maintaining a useful reputation among people.

 

This can all go south in two ways.  Either our words do not accurately describe the actions we will take, or our actions fail to follow the description we have given.

 

Both stem from emotion. 

 

We describe ourselves and our plans in a way that is both pleasing to ourselves and –we imagine- pleasing or impressive to others.  This is one aspect of what drives our individual language.  The other potential emotion to drive our language is a deep knowledge and understanding about what emotions will actually propel our future actions.  If these two things are the same then it’s likely we are honest and trustworthy.  However, it’s possible to be unintentionally dishonest in this respect because we are not in touch with this deeper understanding regarding the fundamental drives and emotions that power our actions for tomorrow and next week.  We may speak only in a way that pleases our idea of ourselves and our idea of ourselves in the minds of others.    If this description has no correlation with who we turn out to be as evidenced by our actions, then our ‘dishonesty’ becomes evident over time.

 

Problems can arise in a slightly different version of this gulf.

 

We can describe our hopes and plans for action, and genuinely wish for ourselves to take these actions and then when push comes to shove, there turns out to be little to no emotion to make that push.

 

We must wonder, is our desire for this course of action merely intellectual?  Do we just like the idea of being seen as the person we describe when in reality there’s no real drive to become this person?

 

 

This is a troubling situation that seems to befall many people in the form of procrastination.

 

We must wonder, if something is really that important, would we procrastinate?

 

Perhaps, but where is that emotional impetus we need to get going?

 

This is the $64 Million dollar question of self-help.

 

All of this boils down to accurate description and emotional regulation.  We can be the sort of person who has no emotional regulation, but be perfectly honest about the way we know we will behave, or we can speak about a different person we hope to be, and then do the difficult work of regulating and manipulating our own emotional environment in order to make the actions come about that will fulfill our words.

 

We bridge this gulf through both methods.  By both being more accurate and honest with how we actually behave, and then looking under the hood of that behavior and tinkering with the emotions that drive those actions. 

 

More honest accuracy with ourselves about who we find ourselves to be allows for an easier exploration of the emotions that power such a person.  And inevitably, we gain more agency over our behavior through this symbiotic relationship of honest reflection and emotional tooling.

 

The first step, of course, is looking hard and long at the words we use.  If they don’t reflect the way we act, then it’s the first and easiest step to take.  Changing language is faster, easier and far more straight forward than figuring out how to sculpt the arc of emotion.   And of course, this change in language is the first step when it comes to sculpting the emotions that will create the person we strive to be.