LOSE YOURSELF

January 23rd, 2019

Everyone with the capacity to understand this sentence has at one point been so engaged in attention that they completely lose a sense of self.

The most accessible example of this phenomenon is watching a movie.  Generally, we as people are fairly poor in our ability to all sit silently facing the same direction.  We are more likely to turn and engage with one another.  But in a movie theatre, something magical seems to happen, and for 90 or so minutes we seem to forget everything other than the fantasy of light on the wall.  Who we are seems to become a lost concept as we identify with the characters, the plot, and the narrative as a whole. 

Only the burgeoning annoyance of needing to use the restroom or stuff more salty or sugared food into our face seems to break the spell.  In fact, we enjoy this loss of self so much that if another person near us fails to properly lose themselves in the story and talk, we scowl and even pester such a person so as not to interrupt our focused attention. 

Where exactly are we during such a phenomenon of attention?  Is our identity somehow on hold?  Or does this phenomenon present both answer and evidence for the Identity Danger as discussed in Episode 17 of Tinkered Thinking?

The concept of identity becomes more flimsy the more we attempt to zero in on it.  The word itself is an excellent example of how people of a culture can latch on to concept without even really understanding what it is.  The etymology of the word ‘identity’ arises from the Latin ‘idem’ meaning same.

Same as what?

Same as this person, or that group or concept?  This is how we generally seem to be using the word, in a way that groups and categorizes people who are sort of the same.  But doing so glosses over the details, which is potentially dangerous, and indicative of a culture characterized by so much disagreement.

What happens to the word identity if we localize it to the max, meaning:  What if our identity is fluid and changes instant by instant depending on what our attention is focused on?

When focusing on a problem, it’s tempting to get wrapped up in the confusion of not seeing the solution.  If we pick apart this all-too-familiar situation though, we can see that the confusion becomes the thing we are focusing on.  By focusing on the emotion of frustration that is often produced by confusion, we cease to focus on the actual problem.  To lose focus here is to actually lose sight of it. But something is always in sight: in this case it’s the physical sensations of frustration and confusion.

In this moment, we are identifying with the physical sensations of the body instead of the details of the actual problem.

This leads to a strange-sounding restatement:  If we refocus on the problem, we then identify with the details of the problem.  The way we usually phrase this is: By refocusing we pay attention to the details of the problem.  But in terms of the experience of consciousness, they are one in the same.  Just as our focus on a movie in a movie theatre invokes an identification with the characters we are paying attention to.

We can even ask the odd question: is the concept of who I am even a useful area of thought to wonder about?

Maybe not, for the simple reason that it means that we lose focus of everything outside of our self.  We lose focus of the world and we begin to exist in an echo-chamber.

This episode references Episode 17: The Identity Danger, Episode 49: Confusion or Curiosity, and Episode 92: Focus

BATTLE ROYALE

January 22nd, 2019

This episode is dedicated to Andrew Ruiz.  Follow him on Twitter @then_there_was.

A Battle Royale is a fierce fight.  A Japanese movie of the same name perhaps took it to the ultimate extreme.  In the movie a fictional government has come to the conclusion that the youth are becoming lazy and complacent.  In response a rather brutal reality show contest is invented where a class of school children are plopped on an island, given various weapons and left to kill one another until there is one standing.  Such a plot might sound like the popular hunger games series.  To be clear, the Japanese version came first and is far more – let’s say – realistic.

While it’s best that such an exercise is left to the realm of fiction, we would do well to delve into the application of such a brutal process to the realms of fiction we entertain.  More specifically, applying the concept of a Battle Royale to our thoughts, our ideas, and perhaps most importantly our beliefs.

One word that is often coupled with the word ‘belief’ is the word ‘cherished’, as in the phrase ‘our most cherished beliefs’.   And yet how many cherished people, of all nations and creeds and ages and sex have suffered as a result of another person’s cherished belief? 

This unfortunate fact of human psychology is at the core of the Identity Danger.  By holding on to any identity too tightly, people can become fearful of other identities and when this phenomenon is compounded with a power differential, terrible atrocities can occur.  All because one person or group of people cherished some belief.

Human atrocities aside, holding on to a bad belief that we cherish can be incredibly self-limiting.  Holding onto a certain belief can mislead us for years and blind us from fundamental mistakes in our plans and strategies.  Not only can the underlying belief be an Axiomatic Mistake, the tendency to hold on to such a belief is also an Axiomatic Mistake.  The error here compounds.  And in retrospect we can realize that being flexible, and adaptable means being able to let go of ideas and pivot quickly towards more useful ones.  This might sound like an absolute crazy free-for-all, but not if we institute it at varying levels using a Well-Oiled Zoom.  First we would want to apply this Battle Royale method to our list of priorities.

What are the few most fundamental things that should be of concern both long term and short term.  The best way to do this is to actually look at what we do on a daily basis and throw those activities in to the arena with what we think our priorities are.  If some of our daily activities don’t stand up to the masochism invoked by juxtaposing them next to our imagined priorities, then we know we need to cut out certain behaviors and initiate others.

With priorities set, this can give rise to goals that we’d like to see occur.  Again, the arena of our mind for ideas about how to accomplish those goals should be subjugated to a Battle Royale.  This is an exercise in the exorcism of denial.  We ask, which ideas will actually be affective and which ideas do we simply like.  Such a mental Battle Royale doesn’t ensure success.  Far from it, we need to act upon the winner of such a mental Battle Royale and get some feedback from reality.  Such feedback may in a sense ‘re-equip’ our different ideas for action and give reason for another Battle Royale of ideas.

Regardless of the specifics of how we actually chose to act, the core utility of this metaphor is to be ruthless and masochistic towards our own ideas and beliefs to ensure that they are worth the rent they charge our minds. 

We often hear the prescription to ‘get out of our own way’.  This may in fact be a direction to get some of our cherished beliefs out of our way so that we can see with a better set of eyes and move forward unencumbered. 

The episode references Episode 17: The Identity Danger, Episode 278: Axiomatic Mistake and Episode 72: Persevere vs. Pivot, and Episode 54: The Well-Oiled Zoom.

(RE)SEARCH

January 21st, 2019

Do we think of entrepreneurs as researchers?  While the label might not seem inappropriate after a moment of consideration, it’s probably not the first thing we would ascribe to an entrepreneur.  Nor would we really think of a researcher as a kind of entrepreneur.  And yet, at their core, it doesn’t seem like their process is all that different.  Both are trying to finding something, to figure something out, and put things together in a way that hasn’t been thought of before.

So Is there really much of a difference?  We might relegate such a difference as the researcher within the institutional domain and the entrepreneur as outside of such a domain.  Or we might highlight the difference in motive: we generally ascribe the pursuit of money to the entrepreneur and the loftier pursuit of knowledge to that of the researcher.    And yet a researcher is required to seek out money, often in the form of grants in order to fund the often expensive process of research.  Whereas the entrepreneur can – with a little luck – bootstrap from absolutely nothing.

These differences are perhaps superficial if we refocus back on the core of what each does.  Each is searching for something.  But, the circumstantial influences of each most likely hinder the ones in each given domain and could prove useful to the other.

A simple example might be healthcare.  The researcher who is associated with an institution most likely has some kind of coverage which absolves this variety of stress.

Whereas the bootstrapping entrepreneur has no such stress net, unless of course they happen to be lucky enough to live in a country where this necessity is a given.

This is a practical difference, but the difference in strategy is perhaps even more important.

In some relative sense, the entrepreneur is throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, whereas the institutional researcher is methodically designing experiments to slowly increment knowledge to create a richer context.  Both are looking for something in this process, but when the styles of each method are compared, one seems tediously slow and the other seems perhaps: reckless.

How many entrepreneurs would have found success instead of failure if they had been a little more methodical and incremental with their approach.  And how many researchers would speed up the rate of discovery if they performed a greater number of experiments instead of spending the time in the minutia of experimental design?  We’re probably more inclined to agree with the former and find discomfort with the later.

Is this because our feelings about such questions are absolutely correct?  Or is it because we are accustomed to associating a certain style of approach to each domain separately?

If we are comfortable with each style in it’s own domain, why do we find discomfort with a merging of such styles of inquiry?  Perhaps this is another niche of human thinking where The Identity Danger creeps in.

The strange lack of emotional overlap here hints at the real difference between these domains.  Institutional research carries within it an implicit contradiction and we can see it symbolically in the word ‘research’ itself.  The verb implies that researchers are merely searching through what has already been found in order to find connections that can solve our problems.  They are in essence searching again for what someone has already found.  But unpacked like this, it proves a fallacy.  Certainly researchers are building on top of previous knowledge, but the motive is to push forward and find something new with the help of previous knowledge.  The institutional shell for this process perhaps undermines this truth by implying that the solutions have already been found and catalogued, they just need to be… researched.  The reality is that many solvable problems have yet to be solved and we would do well to wonder if the concept of an institution devoted to the problem actually makes headway towards a solution or if it merely makes us feel better in the absence of faster more efficient headway?

The entrepreneur on the other hand operates with none of this implied denial and the underlying fear.  Leanness, often in the personal life of the entrepreneur leaves little time nor energy for such concerns.  The precious little time and energy must be spent actually doing things – throwing things at the wall of reality to see what will stick, what reality will take and run with.  The entrepreneur is like a water skier on the shore throwing a line out into the water of reality hoping a whale or shark will catch the end and pull that entrepreneur out over the water fast enough for one wild ride.

The real differences seem to be merely dispositional.  The entrepreneur invokes that fearless willingness to jump into the unknown and make things up as they go along, whereas the stereotypical image of the researcher is one who is safe in the certainty of routine inquiry. 

But beyond this, the entrepreneur and the scientist are one in the same, and it is perhaps an unfortunate ramification of constructed institutions that result in the simultaneous limiting of progress on the part of the scientist and scaring away more people from embarking on the entrepreneurial journey.

The institution burdens the researcher with the hoops and hurdles of bureaucracy and broadcasts to the would-be entrepreneur that the institutional path is the only reliable option. 

The concept of an institution may in fact be an offspring of a mass fear that we can all relate to on an individual level.  The fear inherent in taking a chance, venturing out into the unknown.  It is the act of searching the unknown for something new, as opposed to the empty achievement of researching something another person had tenacity to bring back from the unknown.

This episode references Episode 17: The Identity Danger.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: BLACK WOLF

January 20th, 2019

During his travels Lucilius took a break and sat beneath a magnificent cedar tree for several years to meditate and contemplate the existence of things.

Local people took a notice to the strange man who sat in silent contemplation day after day and thinking him some kind of spiritual being, they took reverence to his presence and brought him daily food so that he could stay nourished while on the inner journey they all imagined he was embarking on.

One day a curious child walked up to Lucilius while he was meditating and asked a question and when the child reported the incident to his family later that night, word quickly spread that in fact it was an oracle that had taken up residence at the base of the great cedar.

People began to come from far and wide to ask Lucilius questions, and with patience and compassion he did his best to answer each of them.

One quiet day when the lines of people were gone and the air was still, Lucilius was meditating and a young boy appeared at the edge of the grove and slowly walked towards Lucilius.  The seated man opened his eyes and took in the image of a boy battered and bruised, dirty and crusted with dried blood on his shins and elbows.  The boy wiped sickness away from his running nose and kept his eyes averted from Lucilius.

“Can I help you?” Lucilius asked.

The boy kept his eyes averted, sniffed back his cold again and quietly said.  “They say you know what people should do and I don’t know where to go.”

“Where have you come from?”  Lucilius asked.

“My family wasn’t nice, so I left.”

“You have travelled far?”

The boy looked up around at the light speckling through the canopy and felt the warm breeze, as though for the first time in many months realizing the change in seasons.  He did not say anything but Lucilius could see the time in the boy’s face.

“Sit before me boy and rest yourself.”

The boy collapsed down in a tired heap before Lucilius, his eyes still averted.  Lucilius took a bowl of rice and vegetables that had been brought to him earlier in the day and held it out for the boy to take.

“They brought it for you,”  the boy said.

“I know just as well as you, how to go without food, but these generous people have kept me out of practice.  I’d be honored if you’d help me learn that strength of mind once more and take this food.”

The boy’s shifty eyes met the bowl again and again until the silence stretched out his hand and he took the food.  The boy ate furiously and Lucilius watched the story of his face, set hard, primed for the next hardship, expecting it, balanced on the edge of bitterness.

When the boy was finished, and he set the bowl aside, he drank deeply from a wide piece of bamboo full of water.  Then he sat silent, his eyes still averted from Lucilius.

And then Lucilius began:

“When I was a boy, growing up far from here, there was a pack of white wolves that lived in the forest to the north of our town.  And to the south were the farmers and shepherds.  My father contracted me out to the shepherds and the farmers and I would work the fields and watch the sheep.  But when I had time to myself, I loved to walk off alone into those woods and during those walks I would often see the white wolves.  The villagers hated the white wolves because they would sometimes take a sheep, a lamb or a cow.  Everyone wanted to know where the white wolves were so they could kill them, but no one was willing to go off into the woods to find them.  Of course, I never told anyone I knew where the white wolves were because the wolves never bothered me.

One season a new litter was born and the smallest was a tiny black wolf.  I watched the wolf try to grow with his brothers and sisters but they would all growl at him and the rest of the pack too did not like the small black wolf.  Even his father and mother would nip at his heels and he got the least milk of the whole litter from his mother, which kept him small.  Everyday they were vicious with him and some days I worried that he would not make it.  And then finally one day, he simply left.

I was still under the contract of my father at the time and had to work for the farmers and the shepherds.  I was young and I thought the work was boring.  All the time all I wanted to do was walk back out into the woods and see the white wolves.  But most of my days were spent watching sheep.  There was one sheep in particular that was a constant problem.  This sheep was always trying to leave the herd and walk off in any direction.  Every season there is one or two in a large herd like this, but this one seemed particularly unwise.  The herd is safe for a sheep, but this sheep could not sense this truth.  He wandered off all the time and we shepherds would chase after him. 

On a day off I was walking through a new part of the woods, far away from where I usually watched the white wolves and it was then I came across the Black Wolf.  He was crazy in the eye.  Crazy from hunger, his dry tongue hanging off to a side and breathing so heavily.  I could see every bone along his side, and as he looked at me, I thought he seemed to know me, but I I think I simply wanted to see this in the animal’s eye.  As I think back now, that Black Wolf was ready to come after me.   

But in that moment, his breathing calmed.  His eyes narrowed past me and his body grew tense as he crouched lower, charging the angles of his legs.

As I turned to look behind myself the Black Wolf shot past me, so close I felt the mangy fur slide along my skin.  Then I saw his aim.

The lone sheep had wandered far from the herd and stood dumbly at the edge of a clearing. 

The lone sheep did not even have time nor the air in it’s lungs to bleat as the Black Wolf tore into it’s neck, taking the sheep’s body down into an instant feast.

I watched the Black Wolf tear at the meat for the entire day, until the sheep was nearly gone.  The Black Wolf’s face was a slick dark black with the blood of the kill and afterwards he laid down next to the mess and slept, and there I slept near that Black Wolf through the night.  When I awoke, he was gone.

Years later, after I’d left the village and experienced some of the world, I returned to see my sister.  During my visit, I went on one of my old walks through the woods and I came across the pack of White Wolves still living near the same den.  I was happy to see them, and it was then that I remembered the day with the Black Wolf years before.  Just as I began to wonder about the Black Wolf’s fate, he emerged from the den, larger than all the rest, and a litter of grey wolves in tow.”

The boy before Lucilius sat with wide eyes.  Lucilius met the boy’s eyes and continued.

“The Black Wolf was forced to go off on his own, but as a lone wolf he carried the lessons of his pack, and it was these lessons, however brutal, however hard won that allowed him to survive and eventually return as a leader.  But the lone sheep did not carry the lessons of the herd, otherwise the sheep never would have left the herd, and for that ignorance that sheep paid with his life.  But it was that sheep’s ignorance that allowed the Black Wolf to eat and grow strong and become a stronger wolf than the rest of the pack.”

Lucilius breathed deeply and looked up at the canopy shifting gently to a high breeze.

“Today a sheep came to me, but a wolf will leave.”

The boy’s wide eyes were set and deep in them Lucilius could see the same dark fire.  The boy stood and turned to leave.  The two took a last look at one another and then the boy walked off. 

Lucilius then returned to his meditation.

EVERYBODY IS RIGHT

January 19th, 2019

Each person has a completely different circumstance.  Drawing similarities between the circumstances of two different people is perhaps unwise because doing so glosses over the details, and as we like to say, this is where the devil lives.

Each person occupies their own physical space which cannot be inhabited by another person simultaneously.  This fact is so yawningly obvious and yet we are very quick to forget the ramifications of such a fact.  On a literal, physical level, no two people can inhabit the same exact perspective.  The most literal example of this is taking turns looking through a telescope or a microscope.  Even if we achieve the exact same view of a celestial body or some microbe in a petri dish, we are not viewing it at the same time.

On top of this, no two people have the same exact neural functioning.  Brains, like situations and circumstances, might have many similarities but again, to say they are the same glosses over the details.  The details in this case are what separate an Albert Einstein from, well, anyone and everyone else.  The same is true in reverse though.  No matter how smart or talented a person is, they cannot somehow magically inhabit the existence of another person.  Attempting to approximate this sort of feat through empathy, compassion and an intelligent modelling of another person’s mind is certainly a worthwhile, useful endeavor, and perhaps near the core of what we like to admire in our species.  But it is still an approximation.

Since the task is an impossible one, it might seem hopeless and therefore pointless, but this admission of impossibility can fundamentally level-up our ability to listen and communicate.

The reason is simple: because of the unique attributes and circumstances of each individual’s existence, everyone is limited to their own point of view.  Given each particular physical circumstance of location, timing, and neurology, it’s impossible to have come to a different point of view – as far as we understand the laws of the physical world.  This is true on both a literal level and a figurative level. 

Keeping this ironclad fact in mind can be a useful tempering agent when in discussion with someone who seems stubborn.  In a physical sense we are all very stubbornly limited to our own experience.  And this isn’t a choice nor an option that we can edit.

In a sense: everyone is right, no matter what buffoonery they are spouting and shouting to the world.

Such a blanket statement, however, is self-cancelling.  If everyone is right then the concept of being ‘right’ is effectively meaningless, at least in the argumentative sense where a person can be wrong.  To be clear, it would be completely unproductive to use this argument that ‘everyone is right’ in an actual argument.  It is a thought exercise to increase the ability to leverage our intellectual compassion while trying to understand the perspectives of others.

If we admit to ourselves that any given individual had to come to their particular perspective in some way, regardless of how much we disagree with that perspective, then instead of seeing that person as ‘wrong’, we can focus far more productively by asking:  what might help this person’s perspective evolve?  What haven’t’ they experienced that I have?  Or vice versa.  What have they experienced that I’m blind to?  What questions have cracked open my thinking that they’ve never heard?

Our goal should not be to manipulate another person’s perspective to be in line with our own, but probably: to curiously engage with the potential for both that other person’s perspective and our own to evolve as a result of dialogue.

Even things that are in sync with one another are not the same things.  Like two people performing a complicated dance together.  Neither becomes other in such a process, but, the two together achieve something that is impossible to do alone. 

This phenomenon of being in sync is perhaps exactly what our debates and arguments should aim for.  Instead of trying to dominate the dance floor alone, so to speak, with some kind of superior performance, our debates and arguments will be far more productive if we figure out how to think together.  There is perhaps a fear and a threat to identity inherent in this possibility, but this is not true, just as two people trying to dance with one another field no risk of becoming the other.

The only thing they actually risk, is succeeding together.

This episode references Episode 42: Level-Up.