MENISCUS

December 19th, 2018

When we think of a border or a boundary, we are more likely to think of a wall, a chain-link fence or something equally obvious and foreboding to surmount.  But borders and boundaries come in all sorts of  constitutions and grades of substance.

We might for a moment think about the surface of water in a glass.  This surface represents a kind of border between the wet part of the glass and the dry part.  But this border has some characteristics that are far more interesting than a standard wall or fence.  If we fill the glass to the very top and then continue to add miniscule portions of water, this border will bulge up on the rim of the glass.  This is simply the phenomenon of surface tension, and when too much pressure is applied, it will break and begin to spill over.   This doesn’t seem like much of a border or boundary, but only if our definition of a border is preoccupied with impenetrability.

If we think of borders or boundaries less as fortified entities and more like basic demarcations that we might want to deal with more wisely, then the seemingly pathetic boundary of the meniscus formed by water’s surface tension offers more to contemplate and reveals different perspectives for strategy.

We need only think of one of the innumerable bugs that uses the delicate force of surface tension to it’s benefit.  Many have evolved to walk on water and they achieve this by delicately working with the boundary created by water’s surface tension.

We might imagine such little buggers, if they could be questioned about the nature of their relationship with the surface of water would not bash the border for being weak, but would extol the opportunity present by respecting how delicate such a border is.

We might extrapolate this notion into other parts of our life and think about what borders we constantly barge through and ruin as opposed to delicately pressing against such borders, moving them and changing the configurations we find ourselves in without damaging such boundaries. 

The boundaries of interpersonal relationships might come to mind.  Just about all such boundaries can be gently moved so that we can get along together without truncating our personalities, but if we act unabashed with little respect for the realities of such boundaries, then instead of moving such boundaries, we might ruin them and create unnecessary problems for ourselves.

Such delicately managed boundaries might even be good representations of limits within our own selves, limits that we can push to become more capable, or limits that we can harmfully destroy.  Perhaps in some circumstances this is exactly what we want, but in other cases, if we want to preserve something without making a mess, but still change the way things are arranged, we might do best to be a little more thoughtful about using a more patient and delicate touch.

ATTENTION: IT'S A STRETCH

December 18th, 2018

The act of attention creates a tension between our mind and the object we focus on.

The words attention and tension both come from the same Proto-Indo-European root ‘ten’ which means to ‘stretch’.

Indeed, when we learn under the duress of school it can literally feel like a stretch to understand what is going on.  Particularly when we have no natural interest in the subject, or the method of teaching is wholly uninspired.

But what about those rare times when good quality focus does not feel like a stretch?

For such times, and the subjects upon which we meditate, we might think of the yoga teacher who seems naturally flexible, demonstrating difficult postures with ease.

The nature of the stretch changes depending on how much practice and time we devote to it.

Coming from the other side of the equation, we might think of the time and practice that companies have put into the stretch from their place in culture to our minds.  How much of the difficult work of focusing attention has already been done for us by those who wish to direct and control our attention and ultimately turn it into a commodity?  Or do such companies simply look to take advantage of the ways in which the human mind has a natural range of flexibility for pleasure and anxiety?  If the symbols that provoke such responses are obvious, then our minds are quick to stretch in those directions.

If we compare this relative ease to the difficulty of concentrating on a new complicated subject about which we know nothing, the obvious symbols that provoke pleasure or satisfaction are nonexistent.  Our progress with such a new subject is determined nearly exclusively by our ability to jump from the satisfaction of one tiny victory achieved through new understanding to the next tiny victory of understanding.  If the time and effortful distance between these stepping stones of satisfaction are too far for our personal nature, we will abandon the task.  If we can achieve these tiny milestones before mental exhaustion, then our likelihood of continued learning is higher.  As these tiny victories slowly accrue, our ability to stretch our mind further and further with regards to that subject increases. 

It’s clear the mind can stretch further and further given the exercise and we can understand more and more if we push ourselves.

Or that ability can be appropriated by companies that specialize in manipulating attention.

The question that remains is: how will you exercise your attention?

YEARNING FOR THE GIFTS OF NOW

December 17th, 2018

Imagine at some point in the future hearing this:

“Remember that time when anyone could just make a website and put whatever they wanted on it?  yea, that was great, if we still had that ability, I’d totally make something amazing.”

In such a dystopian-tinged scenario, we might easily feel the stinging nostalgia of such a sentiment.  We can imagine remembering a moment just like today, when our chance to make something was unhindered.

How much more valuable does something become when we don’t have it?  What about when it’s taken away?

Much of the wealth of the globalizing world has been the result of outsourcing production to areas where labor is cheaper.  What this entails primarily is some blueprint or idea for a physical product that is executed many many times in the cheapest way possible. 

We might think of fidget spinners as a prime example.  Someone came up with the idea, got it manufactured for cheap overseas and then distributed it at a higher price.

The same model of idea replication applies to the infinitely reproducible nature of online content. 

To properly illustrate this point we might imagine going to a shopkeeper in the early 1980’s and asking if they’d prefer to have a monthly rent that was on the order of a $1 a day.  Chances are such a shopkeeper would laugh and say ‘of course’.  Then we might ask if they’d rather keep no stock, and simply purchase as customer’s purchase.  Such a shopkeeper might scoff at the feasibility of such an idea but would not deny wanting such a situation.  And yet this kind of shop is very feasible today online.  But the opportunity of the internet far exceeds this kind of convenience.

We might imagine asking Alexander Hamilton, or Saint Augustine, or Plato if they’d like to be able to make their writing instantly available to anyone who wanted to read it and forgo the whole process of submitting to a newspaper or a to a bookmaker or to a scribe for printing, replication and dissemination.  Of course all of them would jump at the opportunity.

The internet presents a great deal of this kind of opportunity that many in the past would jump at.  But the near ubiquity of this opportunity can make us blind to it, or worse, merely indifferent.

In much the same way that the loss of a loved one makes us regret all the free floating moments we had where we could have expressed what now comes to mind, we regard the opportunities of now as something that will always exist. 

Even if these opportunities continue to exist into perpetuity, we would be best to treat them as ephemeral, merely for the fact that such an emotional disposition makes us more likely to engage with such opportunities.  This is a lesson that often comes too late, and yet, even when learned the hard way on one front of life, we forget to proactively attribute the core of such lesson to other things in our life that might eventually follow a similar path to inaccessibility. 

One way to hone our priorities is to ask what opportunities we would seize if we knew that there was a time limit on such opportunities?

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: BELIEVE TO SEE

December 16th, 2018

Lucilius picked up his godson for the day and found the boy was in a funk.

“Are you ok?” Lucilius asked.

“Yea,” the boy lied.

“Sure doesn’t seem like it, what’s up?”

The boy looked off as they walked away from his parent’s home.  “I got put in a new school this year, and none of my friends from last year are with me.”

“What about the kids in the new school? Any friends there?”

“No.”

“Well, the funny thing about friends is that you only need to do one thing to get more friends.”

“What’s that,” the boy asked.

“You just need to be a good friend to people.”

“But how do you be a friend to people who don’t want you as a friend?”

Lucilius thought for a moment, trying to penetrate the haze of his own memories about those formative times.  But everything seemed so vague and he could sense the pollution of his own adult perspective on those old realities.  Lucilius decided to change tactics a little bit.

“Well, you are a bit right,” Lucilius said, “it is a bit of a crap shoot about who you find yourself around.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” the young boy asked.

“Well, we could take a chance, but it might not work.” 

“What’s that?” the boy asked.

“Well, there’s a way to sort of read your future, but it’s risky, because knowing your future can drive you a little nuts.”

“I wanna do it.”  The young boy said.

“Ok,” Lucilius said.  He stopped and took some paper from his knapsack, squared it and started folding it.  Then he pulled out a pen and started writing on the fortune teller.  Once he was done, he showed it to the boy.

“Ever seen one of these?”

“No,” the boy said.

“It’s a fortune teller.”

“How’s it work?”

“Pick one of the four words.”

“Truth,” the boy said.

Lucilius spelled out, T-R-U-T-H, pulling the fortune teller apart each way.  Then he held open the fortune teller for the boy to look at the words inside. 

“Pick another word.”

“Friends,” the boy said.

Lucilius again spelled out the word.  F-R-I-E-N-D-S, and then held the fortune teller open for the boy to pick again.

“One more,” Lucilius said.

“Happiness,” the boy said.

Lucilius flipped open the inside of the fortune teller and held it out for the boy to read.

“You will see the crowd single someone out, and then you will see you chance to be kind, and before long they will all call you friend.”

A limp smile rose on the boy’s face, and the two kept walking along.

Years later while looking through his godfather’s abandoned possessions, the boy, now grown found the fortune teller tucked away.  He smiled, repiling the papers, but then hesitated.  He went back and pulled the fortune teller back out and opened it completely to look at the rest of the fortunes.  His godfather had reworded the same sentiment over and over so there was no opportunity to pick anything else.

BESIEGING IGNORANCE

December 15th, 2018

Which direction is the force of motivation coming from?  And is it pushing or pulling us towards our goal?

If we think of the context of a bullshit job that is not enjoyable, we might place the motivation to do anything in this job as being behind, pushing us towards some set of actions.

On the other hand, if we think about a hobby we are passionate about, is the motivation in the same position?  No.  Our actions for such a hobby are striving towards some desired outcome that we genuinely wish to see.  [As an aside: many things people are asked to do in their jobs often do not have an outcome that seems all that important to the employee that is directed to make it happen.  This may be because the employee doesn’t see the bigger picture, a piece of logic lorded over subordinates by superiors.  More likely though, superiors have lost touch with the ground level-reality of what is actually effective. ]

The word obsession comes from the latin ‘besiege’ as in to besiege a city.  To surround it and over take it.

We might think of an intense curiosity about a subject bordering on obsession.  In this sense, we can think of obsession as besieging our own ignorance, as though a gap in our knowledge and understanding were an unconquered negative space that needs to be taken over and filled in.

Obsession, passion and curiosity are all descriptive facets of the same function which is an efficient question forming process.

When we plan on an answer, we are setting up imaginary rail road tracks.  This path lacks agility and flexibility.  It might work with a lot of brute force, but it’s certainly less likely to be enjoyable or efficient.

The curious mind on the other hand is less concerned about a path to a certain place as it is with exploring an area that may or may not have that certain place.  Such exploration not only raises the probability of finding such a place if it exists but can build a context on which to understand why such a place doesn’t exist if indeed some goal isn’t possible.  This context may further breed questions that start interpreting the goal from different perspectives-  none of which the curious mind is all too tied to- and give rise to a way of building a way…

Regardless of whether or not our aforementioned goal exists or not, all of this exploration represents previously unknown spaces, places that healthy curiosity besieges in order to understand.