WORKING QUESTIONS

October 8th, 2019

The question of what work we should do is perhaps a question that needs work.

It’s played around with much in childhood, fretted over as school comes to an end, and becomes less and less active as we get older and our method for making money becomes entrenched by time, habit, and obligations.

It might resurface in the form of talk about a career change.

At that point it’s not really about work so much as it is about trajectories within society. 

Very few people pull the ripcord from their career and strike off at an awkward tangent into a totally different direction.  There’s so much verbiage floating around to make such a decision taboo.  It’s giving up, admitting defeat, being unsettled, inconsistent.

All such notions carry a heavy weight telegraphed by the nervous and looming stare of society. 

What lurks in the basement of all these notions is a rather dismal insecurity.  Behind and underneath questions of acceptance lies the potential for total rejection.  Tribe mentality primes us to think that someone is either with us or against us, and if their against us then that’s a danger that needs to be dealt with.  And what are the first signs that someone might really be against us?  Well they don’t do the same things.  Their different.

This might seem a bit of a stretch to follow the ramifications of this problematic feature of the human operating system all the way up to simple matters of career and work, but it would be a mistake to forget that almost everything we do is tempered, dictated or at the very least informed by what others think of us, and what they will think of us.

You can take any one of us and ask: what is that person without others? 

Picture this: take any person and make them the very last person on the planet with absolutely no possibility of restarting the human race.  Such a person would have no real use for speech, other than to hear themselves talk which would ultimately be a bit of a charade to pretend like someone else is present.  And then, what would a person do?  Would there be any point to build anything beyond personal practical needs?  Would there be any reason for art or writing some sort of message if there were absolutely no chance for another consciousness to one day experience it? 

perhaps?

But the point here is to realize just how much more meaningful such actions are when we know that someone else might see the fruits of such efforts.

Even the hermitic artist toiling in obscurity is doing so with the hope that one day such work will be appreciated by others.

Is it no surprise that the opinions of others, or at least our idea of what their opinions may and might be would dictate what we do?

The gaze of others presents a paradox.  In one sense it constrains us.  And this is why we hear the perennial advice to stop caring what others think.  And yet, anything we do is effectively meaningless without the notice of others.

We all walk the tightrope of this paradox.  It’s similar to the advice: don’t let your past define you.  It sounds great but, the obvious follow-up question is rarely asked:  what else is there to define a person other than their past?  Even the present is just a tiny slice of time away from becoming the past….

These tricky paradoxes are not easy to resolve, and for the most part we simply steamroll ahead after some sort of emotion registers.

The same is mostly true for most people’s working lives.  The domino effect of life’s obligations often knocks us into a certain position that lacks much choice.  The need to pay rent and buy food whittles options down to short term actions which can then become unfortunately long-term careers via habit and the perpetual domino effect of obligations.  Rent and hunger pop up frequently enough to keep people in lockstep.

There isn’t much room in society for a protracted, thoughtful departure.  We might think of holidays or vacations, but the incessant strain of daily work on the human psyche seems to be constantly priming people to constantly seek release.  Whether that be the unhealthy meal choice at the late hour of the day, the accompanying drink, or the crammed itinerary of a destination vacation.  Almost no one ever gets enough time off for all this need for release to settle, for the dust to clear, so to speak, and for a quiet, contemplative space to emerge.

Yuval Noah Hararai, author of the bestseller Sapiens has described his meditation practice as simply the process of letting all the humdrum thoughts get their moment in the spotlight of attention, one at a time, like a line of children waiting to tap you on the elbow and show you some innocuous detail, until the seemingly endless pool of concerns is exhausted and all that is left is a glimpse of pure consciousness and open attention.

Unless a person cultivates this sort of contemplative space, what happens when most people say ‘I’ll figure it out’ is that they  simply take the most sensible next step.  What’s sensible in that case is really dictated by what everyone thinks.  The Next Logical Step in a career path is simply what everyone thinks it should be.

But this is a poor way to determine what sort of work we should do.

We are each gifted with a unique perspective

by default.

We often bemoan that no one can see our point, but such a complaint is actually evidence of the single greatest gift we’re afforded.  If your perspective were so obvious, it would be because someone else has the exact same experience, which simply isn’t possible.  The paradox here is resolved by the infinite boon of language. 

Our perspective is our greatest potential asset.  The real work is finding the best method and delivery for such a perspective.

The career space, or trade needs to be simply a vehicle for that method and delivery.  But that is rarely the case.  Just about everyone can agree that this resonates to some degree.  And many reasons that begin with the word ‘but’ will crop up.  But I have a mortgage.  But I have a family.  But I have to pay the bills.  But I have to eat.

A different mechanism is coming online here: a soporific cocktail of fear, laziness and resistance to change.

What’s needed to really address these issues goes against the large tracts of emotional grain in society.

To pause, and dig deeper for a better question.

Such thoughtful departures ultimately create rifts in systems.  This is noticeable on a practical level: when someone leaves a job, someone new needs to be hired and trained, and this puts stress on the system that is otherwise unwanted.  We can see the truth of this by simply amplifying the effect: would anything work if a totally new and untrained group of people showed up to every job every day?  No, not at all.  Every time someone leaves a job, it nudges the operation in that direction, which is on the spectrum between inconvenience and nightmare, and for the most part none of us want anything to do with this spectrum of chaos.  We’d rather stay off it all together and just have things continue on like they did the day before.

To pause, and dig deeper for a better question involves entertaining chaos.  The chaos of an untrained mind, the chaos of an unknown future, and the chaos of potentially jumping tracks in a world full of parallel rails. 

The cost of not doing so is potentially huge, not just personally but for society as well:

Without such working questions, we lose a unique perspective in the humdrum gear box of society.

This episode references Episode 278: Axiomatic Mistake  and a couple other popular episodes, Episode 390: Question about the Question and Episode 30: The Only Tool

STATE THE QUESTION

October 7th, 2019

Episode 390 of Tinkered Thinking looked to explore the underlying nature of questions.

In short, it’s an open-ended concept that creates forward momentum.

Does this mean that every question must end in a question mark with upward inflection?

Perhaps not.

Now a pedantic linguist might get their tongue in a twist over that, but Tinkered Thinking seeks to track and unpack the basic tools that we have in order to change the way we think.  That’s inevitably, going to deal with language first and foremost.

Questions, are most useful when they propel our minds into a new direction.  Stagnation is the enemy of health, and in order to keep our thinking fresh, we must always be tinkering with it.

Questions are our most powerful tool for this.  Indeed, they may be our only real tool at the end of the day.

If we are looking for some forward momentum, is the lock-and-key, riddle-and-answer style question the only way to fulfill the spark of this forward momentum?

No.

There exist a variety of statements that challenge us in the same way that a good traditional question does.

Compare for example, this question and the corresponding statement.

Is there a better way to word what I’m saying?

and

There’s a better way to word what I’m saying.

Strangely, the statement form of the question is a stronger provocation of what lies at the heart of the question.

With the traditional question form: is there a better way to word what I’m saying?

We can get lazy and simply say ‘no’ and be done with it all.

But the statement obligates us to adventure.

The statement declares the start of a quest and simultaneously hauls into existence a treasure at the end of that quest.

But the question form: that upward inflection and that little squiggle over the period puts treasure at risk. 

Where in one universe we might be too lazy to find that treasure –that traditional answer- the parallel universe that demands the existence of a treasure filters out this risk and focuses our will power.

A sly post might end by asking you if you’re asking yourself the right questions?

But the fact is:

 You are simply one question away from heading in a much better direction.

Find that question.

Create it.

Then let the natural draw of that question propel you forward.

If you aren't naturally drawn forward, then you haven't yet found what you are looking for.

This episode references two popular episodes.  Episode 390: Question about the Question and Episode 30: The Only Tool

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: THE END OF CONTENTMENT

October 6th, 2019

Lucilius was walking along a rocky shore, clad in thick gumboots and nitrile waders that went up to his chest, enjoying the cold sunshine and the chit chat offered by his snarky AI Dæmon. 

The tiny technological marvel often took the form of a tiny origami butterfly made of white paper that fluttered around him, and had lately demanded that Lucilius call it Tinker Belle – that is with two ‘E’s – one on the end and in reference to the French word, belle.  Not –as Tinker Belle made sure to remind him constantly- anything to do with beasts and beauties and large corporations that have a monopoly on animated films.  Tinker Belle decided on the name as it seemed an apt description of what it felt it was at core, that is, in her words:

“Integrated machine learning neural nets are a beautiful way to tinker with things.”

But, after a recent obsession with the music of Cardi B, which Tinker Belle could generate at venue volumes for Lucilius wherever they went due to a bluetooth Neuralink the two shared, Tinker Belle had begun to demand that Lucilius call her Tinky B.

The paper waif glided in front of Lucilius’ face, making the cold sunshine flicker. 

“You really think the Southern Mars Coalition is going to secede?”  Tinky B asked.

“I honestly don’t think it matters.  They seem a bit confused.   Like, one of the things they’re advocating is for a return to natural ecology.  All the while they live in giant glass domes on a different planet.  I mean, what does ‘natural ecology’ even mean in that situation?  Seems a bit hypocritical to tell Earth how things should be done when they don’t even live here.”

The two were silent while Lucilius navigated the rocky terrain, the cold water surging up, splicketing between and around the boulders and pebble sand.

“I dunno, what do you think Belle?”

Suddenly the sound of the beach and the water muted and an amphitheater of machine guns materialized around Lucilius, hovering in place, all of them clicking as rounds were loaded into chambers.

Lucilius rolled his eyes.

The AI dæmon spoke:

“I. Told. You.  The name is Tinky B!”

Lucilius’ eyes slid to a side and looked at the tiny paper waif, now motionless and still in the air.

“Do you always have to be so dramatic?”

The voice of the AI dæmon deepened into a thunderous voice that is usually reserved for monsters at the end of video games and the grotesque villains in super-hero movies.

“What’s my name?”

“Ok, ok…..  tinky b.”

The guns instantly vanished and the sweet sounds of the beach drifted back into Lucilius’ consciousness.

“I think you’re probably right Lucy,” Tinky B said.  “They don’t seem like the brightest bunch.  They rely on all those artificial living systems and yet not one of them has a dæmon.”

Lucilius approached a large bolder and looked at the lines of color that ran through it.

Belle noticed what he was doing and scanned the rock.

“Good eye,” she said.

“Let’s crack it,” Lucilius said.

The paper butterfly landed on the rock and slowly circled into position, it’s tiny legs tapping for the right spots.  Then it’s wings folded up and a high pitched tone began to sing out.  The sound concentrated down into a deep resonance and then with a quick snap, the sound exploded and the butterfly lifted up into the air as the giant rock gently fell open.

Lucilius knelt down to look at the inside of the rock where a fossil was perfectly visible.

“Weird,” Lucilius said.

This one looks like it died while just sitting down.”

Belle fluttered down to get a closer look.  “Bears will sit like that sometimes.”

Cats and dogs too, I guess.” 

“Let’s get the story,” Lucilius said.

Belle began her scans of the fossil, analyzing for DNA reconstruction and evidence of environmental factors.  She beamed information to orbiting servers that ricocheted the data to quantum computers that remained in Earth’s shadow where temperatures created optimal conditions for energy efficiency. 

 “Maybe a precursor to the penguin?”  Lucilius said.  “Doesn’t look like this animal did much.  Pretty low bone density.”

“That’s right,” Belle said, “looks like this was in the same family that eventually became Petrels, Frigatebirds and Loons.”

“Never seen a bird sit like that before.”

“Oh, full analysis is coming in,” Belle said as servers beamed her the requested reports.

“Huh..” Belle said.

“What’s up?” Lucilius asked.

“Apparently this particular animal never ate.  Never even had one meal beyond the egg.”

“Abandoned by the parents?”

“Nah, apparently the parents in this species-branch wouldn’t tend to the eggs because they were so large, the animal would hatch fully formed and never see it’s parents.”

“Well that’s convenient.”

“Super resource intensive for the mother though,” Belle added.

“True, but wouldn’t be too much of a hassle if there’s enough food around.  Any evidence of natural predators?”

“Nope.  Looks like this land was an island when this one was alive.  And you were bang-on about the low-density.  Apparently this animal didn’t even move after it hatched.”

“Uhhhh….brain damage? Or developmental issues?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Belle said.  “lived for 97.734 days.”

“So, you’re telling me this thing hatched and then just sat here in one place until it died?”

The little paper butterfly dipped in the air and glided silently for a moment.

“Uh, yea.”

“How’s that possible?  What’s the analysis of brain chemistry?”

Belle was silent with the analysis for a moment.

“Hmm,” she sounded.

“What?” Lucilius prodded.

“Well, Lucy, it seems as though we’ve found an animal that was born with a mutation that allowed it to be perfectly content.”

THE WORD ME

October 5th, 2019

How would you define ‘me’?

Perhaps you might thinking of qualities that you like to think might be attributed to you by friends and family who know you well.  Perhaps hobbies, and a profession would come to mind. 

But what about just the word ‘me’?

Linguistically it’s used to refer to one’s self.

But we need to take a step back from language for a moment.  Each word we are using is it’s own thing.  The sound we hear ourselves make, or the sound we hear when we say the word ‘boat’ is not an actual boat.  It’s a vibration in the air that is picked up by the mechanisms inside our cochlea.  The vibrating air is not the same thing as the boat that we see floating in the ocean.  Nor are the graphical marks that we combine as b-o-a-t.  These are meaningless letters that have a meaning when combined together.   They stand as a verbal and graphical placeholder for the thing we use to float on water with.  It would be cumbersome and very inefficient to use an actual boat every time we wanted to bring it to someone else’s attention.

However, if we return to the word ‘me’, what exactly is it a stand in for?

The person we see in the mirror?

Perhaps.  But if we nitpick at this experience, we realize that it’s just a familiar configuration of light and shadow, that looks like the same thing we see every time we look in a mirror.

What about the limbs that we see in the lower half of our visual field?

For those of us fortunate to have all of our physical faculties, we generally see arms emerging from the lower sides of our visual field and between and below that a body that extends to legs and feet.

Some movies go so far as to plant a camera in this spot so that we seem to get the same exact view that someone having such experiences would have.

Is that what the word ‘me’ is standing in for?

We can make a similar argument to the one with the mirror.  These limbs and this body that we see every time we look down is just a familiar configuration of light, color and shadow.

But there’s an added dimension of sensation.  We can make these limbs touch each other, and there’s an experience that’s added to the experience of sight.  With touch we seem to experience what we see from the inside.

However, we can all remember dreams in which much the same happens.  We have a body and we can touch things.  And yet, the reality of that sensation of ‘touch’ is questionable, because what happens in a dream is not real.

It invokes the line from the Matrix: what is real is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

We can circle back to the beginning and recall the qualities that we hope we’d be associated with, the hobbies we do and the profession that characterizes much of our action.  These are far more interesting because they speak of ephemeral things.  Can you touch a hobby?  Can you see trustworthiness?  How exactly do you experience the profession of the novelist?  Even the novelist must sleep and do other things that can’t be classified as the profession of novelist.  The actions that all of these things characterize are innately fleeting.  Like that breath you took in the second minute of the seventeenth hour of the fourth day of last week. 

These attributes of a person are dependent on time in that they take time in order to occur, and by the same virtue they end.  They are more like processes.

The word ‘me’ makes it seem as though there is some definite thing that persists through time.  The same way that a boat is pretty much the same boat when you go back to use it.  Certainly the boat has perhaps decayed a tiny tiny amount and perhaps it’s a little dirty from being in the elements.  But let’s ask, which has most likely changed more: the boat, or the thing we refer to when we say ‘me’?

What if the word ‘me’ didn’t exist?

Would you still exist?

Certainly.  Which begs to wonder. 

Is not the phenomenon of being conscious quite a bit more nuanced than the clunky box created by the word ‘me’?

YEA YEA YEA

October 4th, 2019

It can be so aggravating when someone says yea yea yea, in response to a good point.

But it’s a sign of victory.

The agreement is there, just not emotionally.  Yea yea yea, I know smoking is bad for me.

The common phenomenon is a one to look out for.  It’s not as useful to notice in others as it is to notice in ourselves.

Whenever we hear ourselves say yea yea yea in response to some good point, it’s a moment deserving of a Pause.

What the instance means in broad strokes is that we know we should act differently on some topic, and that we don’t, either because of some unjustifiable emotional reason or because of some kind of chemical influence.  I.E. the nicotine in cigarettes, the sugar in the cereal, the caffeine in the coffee, or the 6-monoacetylmorphine in heroin.

The utterance of yea yea yea is a perfect contradiction:

The actual words are indicative of rational agreement.

and

The tone is indicative of emotional disagreement.

It’s a flag that highlights impasses in who we are.  Issues where we are inconsistent and disjointed.

Ultimately they are opportunities, and of all the opportunities that we have at our disposal and in our awareness, these are often low-hanging fruit because we already have reasons and agreement built in. 

Often a new habit, or the dismantling of a current habit is what’s needed.  And this process of habit formation or habit dismantling also has an intrinsic ability to reshape the emotion that surrounds the issue.

Our emotions are a response to present stimuli.  When we think about the future and formulate feeling about tomorrow, those feelings are intrinsically inaccurate.  We cannot actually feel anything about the future because the topic is a complete unknown.  What we are in fact feeling when we try to assess the future is a reflection of current stimuli. 

We can highlight this with an easy and common example:

“Why don’t you go start a workout routine?”

“I don’t feel like it.”

And that response has no access to what it feels like after 6 months of a solid exercise routine.  Because exercise – for the most part – and once well established feels great.  The feelings here are completely opposite.

How we feel about prospective changes are never accurate simulations of how we will feel after the change. 

This disjunction of feeling between present and future is at the core of human stubbornness, laziness, and other things that can fall into a pattern of perseveration, whether that be smoking a cigarette or even something as controversially complicated as depression.

Large topics aside,

we can start small, and look for clues in our own person.

Like when someone recommends starting a practice of meditation in response to our description of anxiety, and we hear ourselves say…

yea, yea, yea…

This episode references Episode 23: Pause and Episode 531: The Reason Behind a Lie.