BLURRY MIRROR

February 27th, 2019

Emotions are at the core of what gives rise to our experience.  This is true  as far as this word ‘emotion’ can encapsulate the concept and phenomenon it attempts to describe and name. The reasons why we do anything boil down to one emotion or another.  In one sense they are reflections of our reaction to what’s going on and based on their message we take further action.  They are indications in a similar way that a compass needle indicates something about our orientation in any given place.

In the same way that we can have an inaccurate interpretation of our orientation while looking at a compass that is being affected by an unknown near by magnet, so too do we misinterpret the signal of our noisy emotions.

Nothing is more detrimental than this misalignment between the reason an emotion is occurring and what we actually take away from it.

The way negative emotions are spoken of in such an ill light is a good example of this.

There are the comments about anger being a knife that is held by the blade, or being a hot coal that we hold while waiting to find someone to throw it at.

Such sentiments are generally good guidance regarding what the consequences will be if we act upon such negative emotions in the quickest way that seems to create the densest short-term pleasure.  Such sentiments are accurate in the same way that almost any field has long-term detriment at the cost of short term benefit.  This is obvious in finance, nutrition and physical health.  Eating the donut has a short term benefit in the sense that we feel good for a few moments, but at the cost of longer term health.  The same is true of anger.  Acting on it in the moment feels great for those few fleeting moments, but doing so almost always leaves a carnage of situational problems that require a lot more work. 

Tens of thousands of years ago that urge to eat the sweet, calorie dense food had a very useful place in our physiological repertoire.  Such pleasure was actually a positive motivation because it meant more energy which afforded more physical ability in the environment.  The alternative was spending an entire day chewing foods with far less density when it comes to calories.

In our new and highly altered environment, that hard wired urge to grab for the sweet thing is now a detriment.  This strange reversal is something our biology is not well suited to deal with.  But our executive minds are versatile to handle this reversal if that executive function is exercised and healthy.

We might then wonder about anger.  A cursory understanding of evolutionary biology might lead us to the conclusion that we’ve been given nothing that did not at one point in the process benefit us in terms of survival. This may then in turn lead to the question: why anger?  why jealousy? why depression?

Juxtaposed with the example of the urge to eat a donut might lead to the superficial conclusion that these emotions are also out of date vestiges of a time when they had some good use.  But perhaps not. 

Despite all the swirling controversy that surrounds such a hot topic as depression: it may be entirely accurate that such an emotion is an indication that something needs to change.  Depress literally means to ‘push down’.  We might think of stepping on a blade of grass.  Lifting one’s foot almost always results with the blade of grass springing back up to some partial height and over some course of minutes returning to it’s former orientation.  Keep that foot down on the grass, however, and given enough time, it’ll die.  Such a simple visual image of a live organism being literally depressed is not terribly far from the emotion of depression.  Something feels hindered, unexpressed, in the wrong orientation, not fulfilling it’s function, not being able to get the sustenance it needs in order to thrive.  These describe the depressed person and the biological state of a blade of grass pressed down by a boot.

Some people seem to covet an imagined fact of depression like an identity which is a huge danger.  This is a class="internal-link" href="http://tinkeredthinking.com/index.php?id=7">The Identity Danger to a T.  And it may be a perfect example of misinterpreting the signal in the noise of such negative emotions.  Depression has it’s healthiest interpretation as a signal to try and change anything and everything that might result in a life where one thrives.  Instead, all sorts of other things are ascribed to this state, and many narratives have been created to give life to these identities and perpetual states.

We may do anger the same injustice and interpret it far more simply:  perhaps it’s a kind of disappointment in one’s self that we did not understand how our reality is composed and how it will unfold.  We can imagine the manager who gets angry at employees for not doing things in the way the manager imagined.  Or the lover who expected a partner to act in a different way.  Anger is a common response.  The development and realization of such situations merely indicates that there were flaws in the way we imagined how the world works.  Interpreted differently, we might move forward and realize that our mental map of reality needs some updating, and our ability to edit that map perhaps needs a bit more flexibility. 

We might phrase this bit about anger in an allegorical image.  Anger is evidence that our ability to edit our mental map of the world becoming brittle and breaking.

Meditation practices like mindfulness are invaluable tools for sifting the noise and intensity of such emotions in order to find the real signal of such immersive and intoxicating experiences.

Our effectiveness as people is ultimately determined by how much we act upon the signal of emotion instead of the noise.  The signal is of course, the real underlying cause of the emotion, whereas the noise is the loudest, quickest and most ostentatious way we can resolve this emotion.

Ultimately, these emotions are a reflection of who we are and what we want to be.  Within this paradigm of noise and signal the conclusion is formed from nearly a mechanical logic: misinterpreting these reflections and acting on them in unintended ways is most certainly going to lead us away from the better future we dream of, because these hot emotions are arising from the same brain that has spawned such dreams.  And emotions, however blunt and inaccurately read are ultimately trying to help guide us towards these dreams. 

This episode references Episode 135: The Conductor’s Orchestra and Episode 17: The Identity Danger

TRICKSTER MISSILES

February 26th, 2019

In the mythology of most religions there is a trickster god or entity of some sort.  Shakespeare reincarnated the concept as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  In the Hindu Pantheon, this trickster is Ganesh, the elephant-headed god.  In Navajo Mythology the Coyote was the trickster, in Norse mythology there’s Loki and perhaps in the Christian system we might identify the trickster as the serpent or Satan.

Regardless of affiliation, validity or any other pedantic angles that can be brought to such traditions, the widespread allegory of the trickster god is useful.

Videogames – to switch gears for a quick detour – are in essence puzzles constructed for the player to solve.  We might think of the designers of such videogames as another incarnation of these trickster gods who design difficulties for delight.

As games become more and more realistic we may wonder about the possibility that our reality could be a simulated game.

Thinking of this life as a videogame might at first suggestion sound irreverent, but as with all mental models we must only use them in the context and the situation when appropriate. 

Using a hammer when we need to drive in a screw is a very unwise use of one’s tools.  So too with mental models.

Becoming obsessively convinced that life actually is or might be a videogame is bound to make a person nuts.  But entertaining the idea for a little while at the right time can prove very useful.  Not only can this model work to take some harmful seriousness out of our perspective, help us relax and see new possibilities, but we may even see a way to have fun with our difficulties.

Imagine for a moment if the most stressful part of your life was actually the design of some trickster entity who knows you very well, who constructed this difficulty - tailored it custom just for you because this trickster knew just how well it would get under your skin.  Imagine further those moments when frustration and anger and even depression are wreaking havoc on your mindset and somewhere in some observational dimension, this trickster is rolling on the floor with laugher, having duped you with their trickery.

This might sound like one sick nightmare, but if we employ that video-game-life model of things, our eyes might narrow, our face pulling to a scowl, our mind racing towards some new stratagem. 

Just as a videogame eggs a player on to overcome obstacles, we might hold the secret knowledge of this trickster in our mind as a kind of fuel, One that helps us look at life and it’s difficulties differently and ask:

How can I out-trick the trickster?

So many stories and movies are about some underdog rising up to topple the top dog in some clever way that the reigning power of the moment didn’t see coming. 

People talk about ‘life hacks’ as in things that people have figured out that bring results in a counter-intuitively efficient ways.  We might take this concept a little further and think about how we can hack not just reality to greater effect but even our own mind.

Entertaining the idea of some personal trickster who constantly tries to befuddle you for entertainment is a mental hack for looking at life’s difficulties with the curious, crafty mind of a child at play in a game.

The unpredictability of life ensures that we cannot find hacks for everything, but imagine that trickster god’s laughter cutting short, sitting up quick with rapt and worried attention.  The latest difficulty and trick did not land as it usually does.  Instead of getting the best of you, the newest disaster seems to evoke only a pleasant and calm smile.

The trickster god, annoyed, goes back to the drawing board and dreams up something even more painful and frustrating. 

The new difficulty steamrolls through life, but this time, instead of just a calm and ready smile, we await hungry.  We catch the launched trickster missile and gobble it up like some kind of Godzilla, usurping the explosion and savoring it like a hot sauce fit only for monsters.

Imagine looking at life’s problems like some kind of fuel that we need, like a hungry man for food, we await them and dive into them immediately, not simply solving but savoring.  Laughing in pure delight as we do, imagining the trickster god going insane with failure to get the best of our better selves.

This episode references Episode 159: Hammer and Screw.

IT'LL BE FINE

February 25th, 2019

In a world with so many variables and such an unpredictable tomorrow, we might think that any indication or hint about future events would be sniffed out immediately, gobbled up and used to fine tune our direction and efforts.  Certainly in the world of Stock Trading this is what most traders think they are doing, though on a long enough time line most traders do little better than a monkey throwing darts at a dartboard.  In this micro-exaggerated context, every single change is often over-valued.

While in other parts of life we perpetually ignore things.  We have a plan, a goal, an ideal of the future that we’ve decided on and with a few initial efforts, we fantasize that it’ll eventually happen.  But a tiny red flag shows up.  What’s our response?  Do we calmly reassess the whole picture and analyze how much weight we should give such a signal from reality?  Or do we simply say,

It’ll be fine.

This is the self-defeating butter knife of effective action.  Instead of giving the honest signals of reality their due, we pass the lawn mower over that signal one more time.  Though reality be trying to constantly show us the mistake in our thinking and action, the course still looks smooth.

This is the unsettling power of language.  Though we are equipped with two eyes that function with fairly high fidelity, we can blind ourselves with a way of thinking.

In essence any way of thinking or mental model is a kind of filter for all the information that is coming our way.  If we can filter this information effectively, we can navigate a manipulation of it in order to change reality into a form that was formerly only imagined.

But these mental models - by default - are cutting out potentially significant portions of information in order to be useful.

When we hear ourselves say something like It’ll be fine, we can Pause and take a moment to wonder what the function of such a statement is.   Important information might be steamrolled in such a statement and ultimately risk the goals which we seek.  The inherent laziness  of the human mind that seeks comfort and stability generally thirsts after this kind of default because such a conclusion about new information requires no further work.

However, if the statement It’ll be fine, is replaced with How high is the probability that this information will effect the final outcome?  We might actually start delving into a detail that could derail our plans, or if effectively dealt with, we might discover something that could function like a springboard for progress, moving us faster and closer to our accomplishments.

A general metric for the statement It’ll be fine is how often it has been said with regards to any one thing.

Generally if we are saying this to ourselves over and over, we are likely ignoring important information.

If however, a level-headed and thoughtful person is saying this in response to the constant worries and fears of other people, such a butter knife may be well used.  The underlying test as to whether it’s being used to good effect or to detriment is whether a question and a thought has probed beyond it into the realm of possible ramifications. 

Simply put are we using such a statement to ignore important information or is it evidence that we’ve integrated this information and we’ve followed in imagination the potential effects of such information and returned from that analytical journey with no real conclusion of harm.

To put it even simpler: are we merely reacting, or are we drawing a thoughtful conclusion?

Running our modes of thinking, behavior and language through this kind of analysis fine tunes our processes.  Such questions sharpen our questions about specific goals and this is inevitably the only tool we have available.

It might seem pessimistic to question the idea that everything will be fine, but a neutral look at the past for the history of humans and all sorts of other species underscores the irrevocable fact that: sometimes things really don’t turn out well.

As a species with a growing capacity of forethought, we do best to thoughtfully pause when we hear ourselves say,

It’ll be fine.

This episode references Episode 23: Pause, Episode 307: Derailed,  and Episode 72: Persevere Vs. Pivot

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: BLINDED BY SIGHT

February 24th, 2019

Lucilius sat in a crowded student center studying a textbook.  He turned to a diagram he was drawing and labeled cranial nerves and nuclei.  The center was bustling with students rushing in and out to eat between classes, everyone chatting, creating a kind of static humdrum that helped Lucilius concentrate.  He was highlighting the path of the Vegus nerve, switching markers to make connections to the heart and lungs when a comment popped out of the fray.

“So gross - lucky he’s blind.”

Lucilius looked up from his work and found a group of young men huddled around dirty plates near him.  They all chuckled at the comment while staring.  Lucilius followed their stares to find they were gawking at a couple.  The man had a folded white cane beside him as he sat close to a woman who was clearly the aim of their comments.  Lucilius was entranced by their interaction, the woman’s smile so bright, as though a person were smiling for the first time, the blind man’s fingers dancing along the back of her hand as he spoke like a kind of gesturing for his comments.

“Can you imagine?” one of the guys said, interrupting Lucilius’ thoughts “being stuck with that and not knowing it?”

“Hey pretty boys,” Lucilius piped up, cuing them as they looked over with a quick lift of his chin.  “You give any thought to how ugly your comments make you look?”

They stared blankly at Lucilius for a moment and then sneered, turning back to each other and laughing.  Lucilius watched them for a moment or two longer wondering what effort would actually make the difference he had sought, but he left the effort went back to his work.

A few minutes later he felt a strange silence in the fray of noise and looked over.  The boys had fallen silent as the blind man had walked up to their table.

“It’s interesting,” the blind man said, “Everyone always thinks I’m at a deficit because I can’t see, but in the same breath no one seems to remember what benefit there are in limits.  The disciplined man shapes his body by shaping and pushing limits of exercise and diet.  The disciplined mind does not easily distract by some passing trifle, flash nor advertisement.

            You’re right, actually:  I am lucky.  I can see so much more than you can, and I simply can’t imagine how terrible it must be to be blinded by vision in the way you are.”

Then the blind man turned to walk away and just as he passed Lucilius,

he winked.

SHOULD WE DRIVE

February 23rd, 2019

I should do this,

You should do that,

Everyone should be doing these things.

Such statements instantly split the immediate future into two different universes.  In one of these universes, we ignore these statements and go about our business as we were.

In the other universe, we are introducing a possible edit to our behavior.  This edit arises from some kind of ideal, some kind of narrative story.

For example, a religious individual might think or say something along the lines of “I should do this because I’m a good Christian.”

The narrative in this case is the belief system of Christianity, one aspect of which outlines a type of ideal behavior for people.

A common agnostic example might be someone saying “I should have a salad instead of this donut.”

The narrative in this case is a fluctuating knowledge of health and nutrition, one aspect of which outlines a type of ideal behavior for people who strive to be healthy.

The word should is the past tense of ‘shall’, which has a base meaning of ‘owe’ as in debt or obligation, which in turn comes from ‘formal promise’ and ‘bound by oath’.

Indeed this is exactly what we are trying to do when we use the word should.  We are trying to bind reality to an idealized conception of reality, so that they become one in the same.  We are, through ourselves and our efforts to change others, trying to evoke a better version of reality that we can see in our mind’s eye.

As long as this idealized version is in accord with the laws of physical reality, there is no reason to doubt that a full realization of such a narrative is possible.

Such a stipulation gives rise to an important caveat when it comes to the narratives we choose to follow or future narratives that we might design:

If such a narrative is at odds with the laws of physics, we will be met with frustration and endless disappointment.  This is the importance of the well-oiled Zoom.  We can be so focused on a detailed path of effort that we forget to Zoom out to the big picture to make sure our efforts honor the larger axioms of reality.

Our ability to take in reality, model it in our minds and reorganize it in novel ways is one of our most powerful assets as a species.  But like any sufficiently powerful tool, it can cause great good as well as great harm if used incorrectly.  Simply put, we can imagine versions of reality that are intrinsically unrealistic and our efforts to realize such an unrealistic reality results in a whole slew of painful ramifications.  We need only imagine someone trying to hold back the tide with a net.  The flaw is obvious to the average person, but if the flaw is not obvious, that pain of frustration points not to a problem with reality but with a problem in our model of reality. 

We see this pain of frustration everyday, on the news, on social networks, flashing across the faces of our fellow and friends, we can even see it within the fluctuations of our own emotions over the course of the day.  The pain of frustration is a point of contact between our ideal narrative and reality.  Friction arises between the two and it’s at this point that we must ask:

Is there something wrong with the story by which I’m trying to live by?

Is there potentially something wrong with the underlying premise of my story that does not honor what is possible in reality?

These are hard and difficult questions if honestly asked.  Often they are not even entertained and the basic, wide-spread assumption is that such pain of frustration is an opportunity to have grit, charge on and hopefully prevail.  Indeed a capacity to enable such drive is invaluable, but only if the driver can properly navigate the way.  If we take this allegorical image literally, we might ask, does the driver understand the limits of the current vehicle?  Can the driver react to the environment as it changes by moving through it?  If the driver suddenly discovers that the destination is in a completely different direction, are they mentally and emotionally equipped to make a 180 and forget the feeling of lost progress?  While such questions perhaps seem silly and the answers intuitive when we think about literally driving around, these questions have great potential to evince edges of discomfort when we apply them to our larger goals in life.

We might think of the Oil Executive who suddenly has a change of heart with regards to the science surrounding Climate change.  Such an experience is bound to be emotionally conflicting.  And while the local goals of acquiring wealth and status for the benefit of family drove such a person to great effect, we might now wonder if such an executive is capable of driving such a company in a completely new direction?  Such a radical shift is bound to be met with great opposition, and so the simple questions that we’ve applied to driving a car suddenly seem fraught with great difficulty and trepidation.

We might identify grit in two directions.  Having the grit to ignore science and just charge along towards profit.  Or having the grit to hear the opposition and the cries against change and lead anyways, despite the human push-back. 

Inevitably, the most important question regarding our personal narrative is not whether or not we should act in accordance to such a story at any given time.

The most important question comes before this step, we must ask: 

Which narrative should I subscribe to in the first place?

This episode references Episode 54: The Well-Oiled Zoom, and Episode 72: Persevere Vs. Pivot