DETRIMENT BENEFIT

March 18th, 2019

The word detriment, from Latin, via Old French, means ‘wear away’.  We might think of the erosion of a coastline, or – perhaps – we might think of the erosion of a waistline for someone who has diligently undertaken a course of exercise and nutrition.  Detriment refers definitively to damage, but damage also breaks into ‘loss’ and ‘hurt’.  Certainly in the specific frame of health, we can say that it’s not exactly comfortable to lose weight.  It hurts to work-out if we are unaccustomed to such and it certainly hurts to hold ourselves back from temptation, both of which result in a beneficial loss.

We can also envision the sculptor chiseling away at a block of marble, surrounded by a pile of detritus.  The work of art is not complete until everything has been removed to reveal what the artist has in mind.  And here we can differentiate between hurt and harm.  Though the two words seem inherently bound in that hurt always leads to harm, we can suss out a categorical shift.  If the sculptor keeps chiseling away too hard and cracks the sculpture in half, then of course harm has occurred.  And yet, with a thoughtful approach to health, we can endure much hurt while exercising while keeping ourselves safe from actual harm.

Detriment need not be destruction, but merely a way to clean up what has grown through natural processes.

This tension and turn-taking between growth and detriment can be seen in all sorts of situations.  As in the biological example of growing, eating and the pairing back the fat, the trend is also apparent in seemingly unrelated areas, such as: searching for an answer.

We google a question and a list of possible sources that may hold our answer pop up.  We open up a few links in different tabs, and after much time researching, we might find our browser has grown slow because we’ve opened up dozens and dozens of pages in our adventure down some interesting rabbit hole.  After stepping back, we look through all the opened pages and exit all those that didn’t prove helpful – cutting the fat, in the browser-sense.

Through this toggle of expansion and detriment we discover and create the future, whether this be a business or merely an idea, but our rhetoric and behavior suffers from a categorical barrier that keeps concepts like detriment in a negative category and growth in a positive category. 

We must remember that tumors grow and that bad ideas can whither away.

Just as hurt does not always lead to real harm, we must keep in mind that the borders between our categories truly have a semi-permeable nature.  And in fact, some of these categorical borders may benefit from their own degradation, while other borders perhaps need some growth.  Such a process is occurring all the time within language as connotations expand and take over denotations.  While such a process is inevitably a cultural one, the individual also experiences the same process on a personal level.  The difference is that the individual can Pause and take a mindful, thoughtful perspective on this process and in so doing discover new helpful ways of thinking that can in turn lead to beneficial behaviors. 

We can mindfully entertain more helpful ideas and do away with concepts that are no longer serving us well, regardless of what the culture at large tries to dictate, and this may be the most fundamental invocation of that popular advice to ‘go your own way’.

Such general advice may even be a subtle example of these mechanisms of growth and detriment on a large scale.  We grow together, but we often benefit immensely when someone splits off from the herd to go investigate something on their own.

This episode references Episode 23: Pause, Episode 133: The Right Track and Episode 269: Blazing Tracks

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: HYDRATION

March 17th, 2019

Lucilius was sitting in the baggage claim area of an airport, waiting during a long layover.  He took a sip from an old pannikin – a metal mug - he’d used for several hundred years.   The mug was dented and scratched, misshapen but loved, and still – only faintly – showed the image of Hercules, crudely etched, swinging a sword at a many-headed monster.

He realized it had been decades since he’d last looked at the faded piece of art.  Hercules had yet to figure out the trick to defeating the monster and it was still getting stronger and stronger, growing more heads every time Hercules cut one off.  Lucilius held the mug out and took in all the dimples and dents.  Hercules’ sword was bent because of one dent, and the monster wrapped round the rest of the mug.

At that moment he heard a short shriek and a moan.  He looked up and saw a woman kneeling over a suitcase unzipped and open.  She was holding white and blue shards of a tea cup that had shattered in her luggage.  She began to cry as she peeled back paper and clothing to find more broken pieces of china, the whole mess of it clinking and crunching as she moved things around, searching for even a single unbroken piece.  The woman sat back and started to have a full-on tantrum, anger and grief flashing across her face.

An airport janitor walked some distance past her and the crying woman yelled,

“Why can’t you be careful with people’s stuff?”

The janitor briefly looked around to see who she might be addressing and then continued on their way.

Lucilius sipped more coffee, watching the scene and became aware once more of his mug.  He held it out at length, next to the sight of the bereaved woman. 

The mug certainly wasn’t new and far from pristine, but, Lucilius realized, it had somehow become better than when it had first been given to him.

The woman mopped up her face and then dragged the splayed suitcase over to a trashcan next to the bench where Lucilius sat.  She struggled to lift the suitcase and get an edge to the lip of the trash, tilting it until the whole crushed mess clattered out and dumped into the bin.  The woman coughed at the dust cloud that plumed up from the crash as she flipped the whole suitcase on top of the trash bin and then walked away.

Lucilius cracked an old book and began to read while his next flight was still sometime off and it wasn’t long before the same janitor had circled back and noticed the suitcase atop the trash bin. 

The janitor removed the suitcase and groaned, looking down at the heavy mess.  The janitor tried to lift the plastic trash bag from the bin but with the weight, it only ripped where he gripped it.  In defeated frustration, the janitor took a step back to reassess the situation, and as he did, he bumped Lucilius’ mug balanced on the edge of the bench.  The now empty mug fell and bounced on the tile, clattering to a stop.   The janitor spun around in the same instant.

“I’m so so sorry.” He said as he picked up the mug and handed it back to Lucilius.

“Don’t worry,” Lucilius said “it’s made for that.”

CLEVER LOVE

March 16th, 2019

There’s that limply inspiring phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”  Which certainly seems to always be about other people.  We might wonder, are the tough people who are already going being told such a thing?  Or does the presence of this statement feel more like a belittling assessment? 

This is perhaps reminiscent of the obvious problem with traditional schooling.  A grade, such as an A- or a C+ gives no indication of a trend.  It is more a statement of position as opposed to motion.  It’s akin to saying: this student’s command of the subject is good, or mediocre.  It gives no evidence of where someone started, what sort of progress, either good or bad was made, and certainly offers no indication of how a person might grow, which is – to the great misfortune of millions – exactly how institutions of higher education treat such summarizing symbols.

To segway back to our initial phrase: “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” perhaps merely indicates that the listener is not seen as tough in the eyes of the speaker.  Though the intention is perhaps a good one, if the listener comes to believe the speaker, than the prescription is entirely iatrogenic, meaning: it makes a weak person out of someone who was simply not appearing tough.

So many of our efforts land in the same vein:  By merely describing the situation, we entrench that situation, as opposed to changing it for the better – which is most likely our intention and objective.  Yet we shoot ourselves in the foot by failing to take a step back and take in the whole situation.

The straight-shooter might simply conclude that one has to face the music, man-up, and stop ignoring reality.

This may work in some cases, but it puts an awful lot of navigational burden on the listener.  And isn’t this the person in need of help?

The prescription Deal with it! starts to look like laziness on the part of the person saying it.  If such a person is in a position to say such a thing, wouldn’t they be equipped to give more thoughtful advice?  Perhaps such advice wouldn’t fit so quaintly into a one liner that can propagate through culture like all quotes do.  But this is a big part of what makes us human: taking the time with one another, not just to explain things, but to honor that interaction by stepping back from it and asking: what would actually be effective in helping this person grow?  Surely we can do better than just barking at a person that they should grow?  If that’s all a person can muster, than perhaps there’s more than one person in need of help, love and growth?

We might wonder how we can repackage that cultural adage.  Instead of “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”  We might say something like: You don’t have to be tough to get going, but the further along you get, the tougher you’ll become.

Perhaps some of our cultural wisdom needs some nuanced updating:

When the going gets tough, the weak get stronger.

This episode references Episode 185: Iatrogenic Gaslighting: Are You Ok?

BIPEDAL PERSPECTIVE

March 15th, 2019

Episode 100 of Tinkered Thinking examines how the word ‘yet’ can put a powerful spin on certain statements.

A negative statement like “I can’t do math” instantly ceases to be a pessimistic conclusion and suddenly embodies the underdog process of a person who is learning when the word ‘yet’ is added to the end.

I can’t do math….yet.

Without the key final word, the statement is planted squarely in the mental composition of pessimism.  The perspective shifts with the addition of yet.  For all those of able body, we are perhaps familiar with the case of moving in one direction, stopping to think, and then taking a step in a new direction.  If we look down at our feet during this moment, one is facing in the old direction.  The other has pivoted away, and its on this new direction that we put our efforts.  We physically invoke the notion of two different perspectives in such a case.  The old one, heading in the wrong direction, and the new direction that may pay off.

Pessimistic statements may be broadcasted as realistic, but their true potential effect on our own psychology arises when we combine such statements with other perspectives.

For instance, it’s common to shrug one’s shoulders with a pair of enlightened eyebrows held high while saying:

That’s just the way things are.

This is pessimism trying to masquerade as tough-love realism.  And it becomes apparent when we add just a tiny spin to the statement to tweak the perspective.

One can instead say:

That’s just the way things are, currently.

Here too we find a conclusion flipped into an active statement, one that opens up the future and frees it from being anything like the past – if only we use the present in novel ways.  Failing to use the present like this merely repeats the past and turns life into a kind of monotony.  There is of course a degree of fear that crops up while trying new things, but this is often a good sign.  It’s a signal that we are venturing into unknown territory.

So often our ability and opportunity to take a few different perspectives on a situation, even our own situation, is wasted.  Our feet march in the same direction and yesterday manifests again as tomorrow.

Simply Pausing to consider options and possibilities opens up the future, for the mere fact that it creates a choice.  We can continue on the track we’ve been on, or we can entertain the new directions of such an imaginative cross-roads, and perhaps, venture out into the unknown.

This episode references Episode 100: Yet, a Way out of the Box,  Episode 72: Persevere Vs. Pivot and Episode 23: Pause.

FRUSTRATION FOCUS

March 14th, 2019

Exposure tends to breed tolerance.  The more consistently a person lifts weights, the more weight that person can handle.  The more consistently a person drinks alcohol, the more they seem to be able to drink.  The fifth time trying to make it through a fast is much easier than the first. 

Frustration on the other hand, or rather, the objects that inspire such a response do not necessarily seem to fall within this paradigm.  If this were the case, we’d all be able to maintain the placid composure of an enlightened bodhisattva during times of stress and confusion.

Instead, it seems, our mind might be haphazardly gearing itself for another kind of tolerance, indeed, the exact opposite of what we want.  Many people may in fact be priming themselves to exercise a response of frustration.  Many of us can probably call to mind a person in our life that is so easily riled up by even the smallest things.  A meaningless detail of the day doesn’t unfold according to some plan and the whole day is lost because of it. 

A first thought about such subjects might find it puzzling that an adult, after years of living and dealing with the innumerable aggravations both large and small that befall us on a daily basis would train a person to be completely unsurprised and unconcerned by such trifles.  The opposite seems to be the case.

One idea that may answer why, revolves around the simple reason that we as people merely want to feel  something while we live.   For many people life falls -unfortunately- into long spells of monotony and boredom.  Most bullshit jobs do not really require any growth or present much challenge with regards to what a person is really capable of.  We attempt to placate this dearth of utilized potential by bombarding ourselves with T.V. shows, medications, and vacations.  As though these “reprieves” are functioning in the same way recovery time after a work out is healthy.  We should ask the harder question: are these healthy reprieves?  Or are they masking a deeper problem?

These modern tropes are trying to accomplish two emotional functions simultaneously:  we are trying escape our usual feelings of eroding monotony and we are trying to replace them with something a bit more spicy and exciting, whether this be the gore-porn of Game of Thrones or the hot sun and jostling waves of a far away beach.  Regardless, we are simply trying to feel something more intense than – the usual.

Frustration and it’s tendency to rile a person at an accelerating rate over the years may fit into this paradigm of simply wanting to feel something of substance and gravity.  Of course any frustrated person will deny wanting to react in such ways, but this tension, this feeling of being trapped within a tense circumstance is part of the drama that helps one escape from the mundane facts of normal life.

We can think of sensationalist news and tabloids that function within society by broadcasting ridiculous and often negative stories.  The clue about why these function is in the subject title: sensationalist.  They hit the senses, creating a sensation that we feel, and just as all publicity is good publicity, we are geared to want to feel something, the larger the feeling the better – it doesn’t really seem to matter if that feeling is good or bad, though it’s clear, one is easier to find fodder for, and negative feelings are about as difficult to raise to a pitch as a weed left un-pulled. 

Unfortunately this seems to be a bug that was once a useful feature.  Back when survival was a fairly constant daily concern, being primed to recognize the (negative) threat in one’s own environment was very very useful.  Indeed, evolution weeded out those who did not have this as a hardcoded program.  But now, a donut offers far more danger to our health than some lurking predator, and this tendency to notice and focus on the negative finds itself in an environment where it has outlived its usefulness and now does us a great disservice.  For how many is this tendency perpetually pulling us away from the present and the possibility of simply enjoying a moment breathing and being alive?

We can take a moment right now.  Just a quick second, to think about how nice it actually is to be alive.  Things could be far far worse, and yet here we are, after all that had to come before us to make it so that we would exist and experience this moment. 

What luck.

Our relationship to frustration progresses in the exact opposite direction of this ability to be present.  Like the movies, the medications and the vacations, we always need more in order to out-do the last experience we had.  The movies are flashier, gorier and more action-packed.  The medication dosage ratchets higher, and the vacation has to have a new destination – preferably somewhere better than last time.

Frustration – for many people – follows the same trend.  But instead of getting frustrated with bigger and more important topics, our reaction magnifies any chance it gets, which means that the ingredients required to provoke our frustration become more granular, until it takes almost nothing at all to spark a fire in our mind.

The only real solution is developing an ability to Pause – to foster a habit and a practice of mindfulness – which is really just an ability to step back within our own mind and notice what is happening on an emotional and intellectual level.   This slowly, but surely turns the trend in the opposite direction.  It turns a vicious cycle into a virtuous one, until we can stomach that old quote from Churchill without feeling a sense of embarrassment.  As he once said:

A man is about as big as the things that make him upset.

This episode references Episode 23: Pause.