SWEEP IT UNDER THE FEED

September 13th, 2018

What is the difference between ‘clean’ and ‘organized’?

No word exists, nor was created in isolation.  They are all on a spectrum of interdependency and nuance, and this interactive fact is more important than specific, potentially pedantic details about any given definition that we attempt to regard in isolation. 

Such an attempt is a fool’s errand because any attempt to define a word entails the use of other words and therefore automatically hauls a word out of isolation

by default.

Any focused juxtaposition of words or concepts is simply an attempt to look at one way words relate out of many.  For example, what is the similarity between ‘clean’ and ‘organized’ brings about a whole different discussion extending to the fact that both words can easily use the other in their definitions.

The first question, however – what is the difference between ‘clean’ and ‘organized’, would probably have to shift to a different perspective, one where the words cannot define each other.  For this difference, we might ask whether they describe internal qualities of any given thing or external.

For example, a countertop might look clean, but still be covered in E. Coli, where as looking at an organized woodworking studio evokes the same pleasure that a seemingly clean counter top does, but carries along with it a bit more confirmation that we aren’t’ being deceived by the appearance of things.  The macro analog to the clean looking countertop covered in E. Coli would be the beautiful tidy-looking house that has a pile of junk in every closet and stuffed into every drawer.

In this way we might say that ‘clean’ is a relatively superficial external judgment.  Whereas ‘organized’ is a description about internal structure.  To put this another way.  ‘Clean’ is a description of the way things look, where as ‘organized’ is a description of the way things actually are.

Our clean looking social medias are the quintessential shoo-in for this juxtaposition.  Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have made it very easy and convenient to stitch together clean, sanitized stills of our lives to create a beautiful looking tapestry that we like to think represents our lives.

We may ask at this point: for someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time on these social platforms, what other activities are they habitually doing?

For example, who is more likely to waste time scrolling through a feed:

Someone who reads and meditates daily

or

Someone who drinks everyday and rarely cooks?

I’ll leave it to you to answer that question, but it’s potentially useful to think about these activities through the guise of another question:

Which of these activities is contributing to an organized and healthy life as opposed to a life that just looks clean when everything is swept under the feed?

PIVOT HARDER BETTER FASTER STRONGER

September 12th, 2018

It’s said that the person who will not stop trying cannot be beaten.  In order to maintain that kind of resilience, we do not try the same thing over and over. We try different things to see what will lead us towards our goal.  Every failure or obstacle is met with a pivot, small or large, in order to persevere.

If we want to embody that kind of person who cannot be beaten, than we need not focus on perseverance.  We would be better served to focus on our ability to pivot.

The most talked about and recognized aspect of the Cheetah is it’s ability to run faster than any other known creature.  We picture the big cat like a sniper’s bullet, heading straight for it’s target.  Single minded. Determined.  Unstoppable.  Like a locomotive, or a dive-bombing hawk.

A cheetah’s speed, however, is not the most interesting aspect of it’s abilities.  It’s only the most talked about.  What is more curious about the cheetah is it’s ability to maintain huge speed while turning and pivoting in a different direction.

We’ve all played a sport where a change in the game requires us to suddenly run in a totally different direction.  Our poor ability to do this has resulted in quite a few torn MCL’s and sprained ankles.

But imagine changing your running direction while travelling at 55 mph. . .

Bones would snap.

It’s the cheetah’s ability to slow down and speed up very quickly before and after a pivot that give it the advantage.   The body of the cheetah accomplishes this with incredibly powerful muscles but also very strong bones that can handle the forces of acceleration and deceleration.

Athletic endeavors aside, we really need not worry about how well our physical bodies can pivot in the way a cheetah’s body can.  What is greatest importance with this analogy is to apply it to our minds and our emotions.  How fast can we mentally and emotionally pivot? 

Do we get hung up with anger or sadness needing to slowly, painfully turn in a new direction like the Titanic, or can we develop incredibly strong mental bones that can take the strain of an immense and immediate change in emotional velocity?

We must ask our selves: how fast can I bounce back?

How much better would life be if I could bounce back harder, better, faster, stronger?

What would it look like from the standpoint of behavior, as if I were looking at myself through a video recording, if I saw myself confronted with some terrible circumstance and instead of devolving into negative emotions, I pivoted immediately, taking that mental 90 degree turn in order to start solving the situation immediately?

Perhaps we don’t slow down fast enough right before the failure, and after the failure has occurred we stagnate in a shocked, depressed idleness for some long length of time.  The bones and muscles of the human pivot are mental assets that we can grow and develop in a much shorter time frame than it took evolution to bless the cheetah with such physically equivalent gifts.

We can learn to full throttle straight into failure, and immediately get back up and start throttling in another direction.   Like muscles and bones that need exercise, our emotional regulatory powers need a similar sort of exercise.  The more failure we expose ourselves to, the more desensitized we become to the experience, which allows us to switch directions more quickly and try a new and improved strategy.

It harks to the old adage: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

The converse is also true.  What doesn’t make you stronger is slowly contributing to your death.

Instead of cowering in FEAR, we’d do best to get aggressive with ourselves and start making those difficult pivots towards our goals.  The more we push ourselves into this strategy the more we’ll be able to pivot harder, better, stronger, faster.

*Of course the cheetah does not make huge turns while at top speed, it slows down some.  The point still stands, even if the Pedantic reader would rather sulk.

A special shoutout to username Schmazo who brought up the cheetah connection on the Tinkered Thinking subreddit.

This episode references Episode 72: Persevere Vs. Pivot, Episode 114: Hawk and the Hound, and Episode 63: The Etymology of Fear. If you’d like to fully explore those references, check out any of those episodes next.

COCONUT

September 11th, 2018

Most of us know how to catch a monkey with a coconut, but the trick as an analogy for the mistakes we make as individuals might benefit from some mapping with real examples.

If you are one of the few people who has not learned how to catch a monkey wit ha coconut, it goes like this:  You hollow out a coconut and leave a hole that is just big enough for a monkey to fit their hand through.  Then you put some food in the coconut and leave it tethered down where a monkey will find it.  A monkey will then reach into the coconut and grab the food, but because their hand is holding the food and forming the shape of a fist, the monkey can no longer pull their hand through the small hole.  Even when a hunter is approaching the monkey to capture it, the monkey will still stubbornly hold on to the food while trying to pull out their hand.  The mistake is clear and obvious to a human:  just let go of the food, take your hand out and run away.

From our point of view, the problem is a simple mechanical problem that we can see very very easily.

We would benefit to ask if there are any problems we have that could be solved just as easily if we could look at it from a different perspective, in the same way that a monkey would easily avoid capture if they could see the problem from our perspective.

What are the coconuts in your life?

Here’s an easy example:  That box of donuts getting passed around at work.  Do we always grab one?  This is a surefire coconut problem.  Tens of thousands of years ago, there was very little sugar and carbohydrates available for human consumption.  These dietary possibilities were certainly sought after and readily consumed when found because they are packed with energy, and energy was in tight supply back in the day.  Technology, via the agricultural revolution and subsequent developments with food production have allowed our species to surround and drown ourselves in these dietary categories.  The result?  Uncomfortably super-sized humans that suffer increasingly worse health. 

The desire to grab the donut is ancient.

It is strongly wired into our biology in the same way that the monkey holds tight to the food in the coconut that keeps it trapped.

If we are unhappy with our body, we can label that body and our unhappiness as a coconut.  The food in the monkey’s fist need no analog.  It is the donut we grab at work.  The quick candy bar in the check-out aisle.  The cheeky beer after work.  The lump of sugar in the coffee.  The frappe-crappa-cino or the Care-not-me-mock-me-otto from Starbucks.  That creamy bowl of pasta.  The dirty piece of pizza when the vegetables in the fridge feel like a chore to cook after a long day at work.

The difficulty with the coconut in our lives is that it is not as easy to see.  It is not a straight-forward mechanical problem as it is with the monkey.  The coconut we have to deal with is more abstract and spread out over space and time as a collage of decisions that we make.  We think it has to do with willpower.  If only we had more willpower, then we could make the better decision every time.  But this is a farce.  Something we say to quell our itch to fix things.  A lie we tell ourselves so that we can keep travelling in the same RUTS and going to the same places. 

Such a coconut requires some strategic thinking.  Compare for example, the cultural image of the chef with the cultural image of the yoga teacher.  One is clearly larger.  While not all chefs are larger than yoga instructors, the majority of chefs have some extra weight.  Is this because such people have less willpower?  According to the lie we enjoy telling ourselves, this is the answer.  But the comparison reveals the true nature of the difference.

The difference is the environment.

The yoga instructor is more likely to spend time in places and in a general environment where making the better dietary choice is easy.  Willpower is not a question, it’s a question of what’s available.  A yoga studio would not last long if it has complementary pizza and donuts before and after every class.

The environment of the chef, on the other hand, is replete with opportunity for poor dietary intake.  A chef most likely spends a good deal of time preparing the sort of food that will attract customers to a restaurant.  Competition with other restaurants creates a high probability that this food will appeal to our deepest instinct, and the desire to grab the donut is ancient.  In summary, the chef is going to be surrounded with foods of high-energy density: carbs and sugar.  Constantly preparing and tasting such food is going to have an obvious effect on the body if given enough time.

Such a chef might solve the problem of the coconut by cracking it and instituting a habit of intense resistance training which would build a body that could effectively handle such a load of food.

Or the chef could solve the coconut by letting go of the sort of food they cook and look for a different environment: say, cooking for a high-end yoga studio.  Such an environment would demand a totally different sort of fare, and such cooking would naturally take a positive toll on the chef’s body.

How do we identify the coconuts in our life?  Easy.  What are you unhappy about?

There’s your coconut.

How do you solve that coconut?  How do you pull your hand out or crack it?

That’s what the rest of Tinkered Thinking is for.  Stay tuned.

This episode references Episode 125: Rut.

MILLION DOLLAR IDEA: DIAMOND OR SEED?

September 10th, 2018

We all have ideas.  New ideas that we don’t see any implementation of anywhere.  How this or that could be better.  There’s abundant proof of this too, and unlike those ideas that could fix things, we see and experience that abundant proof everyday: it’s all that complaining we hear.

There are all manner of ideas, and many complaints, if turned inside-out can become excellent improvements to our lives.  Usually, however, we stop –imaginatively- at the complaint.

Every once in a while, we have a good idea, and we think we know it.  We wonder if it could be that coveted million-dollar idea.  What do we do with that idea?  Often, we do nothing.  And then years pass and we eventually see it expressed in some form in the market.  That million-dollar idea then turns into an I-told-you-so!  Which is a feeble attempt to recognize the mistake of an opportunity we failed to seize.  We squeeze some tiny drop of prestige out of our old idea.  And in doing so we forget to improve.  We forget, or we fear to honestly face the thought about taking a chance, so that next time we have a million-dollar idea, we might actually act on it.

The million-dollar idea that we do not act upon is like a diamond.  We treat it with a delicacy that springs from greed.  We don’t want too many people to know about it because it might get stolen, and we don’t play with it too much because we don’t want it to break or get scratched.

Having courage with a million-dollar idea is to switch perspectives, and recognize that it is just an idea.  It has very little value unless it is acted upon.  Such a mindset casts away the notion of looking at such an idea like a diamond.   Instead, we can think of such ideas more like seeds.

No two seeds are the same.  They are imperfect by design, because the purposely mixed up and flawed design promotes variety - variations that might flourish more successfully than their parents.  Most seed bearing plants and trees will produce a lot of seeds because some won’t make it.  But some will.  Some will be acted upon by the environment, and potentially flourish.  This is a better way to think about the ideas we have, because it opens up the possibility to have many avenues that lead towards some kind of success.  That million-dollar idea is really a misnomer.  It’s an idea that could lead to an improvement of society that society deems is worth a million dollars.  The key word here is could.  If we never act upon the idea, then society will never get the chance to love the product or indifferently pass on it.

Perhaps it’s the later possibility that keeps us from acting upon our ideas.  In this instance we must remember that trees produce many seeds in preparation for this sort of possibility.  Not all of them will work out – very few in fact.  So best to attempt many times with many variations.  That’s how you get a forest.

So is it better to greedily covet our ideas, so much so that we risk never acting upon them.  Or should we think of our ideas like a gardener does her seeds. 

Bury a few seeds.

But better than buried treasure, such ideas might sprout, and lead to a new and improved life.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: PRODUCTIVE DELUSION

September 9th, 2018

In the early 21^st century, the technology of virtual reality and cognitive medicine had reached a critical juncture that allowed Lucilius to play a little trick on himself.

A compound had recently been developed by the pharmaceutical company Mondieu called Mnemectomol which removes all memory of a period up to a year, depending on a incredibly precise dose.

Lucilius hooked up an automated I.V. of Mnemectomol that would deliver a single does to his body at the end of his time in the virtual reality machine.

He had programmed the virtual reality machine so that it would record all of his experiences and then deliver it to an A.I. program that would transcribe the experiences into journal entries.  Lucilius had given this A.I. program all of his previous journals so that it could ingest all of his linguistic tendencies and idiosyncrasies and patterns of thinking and revelation in order to produce journal entries that were stylistically impossible to differentiate from his own writing.

Before getting into the machine, Lucilius took the last blank book that would be written in by the A.I. program and wrote a note to himself in the back.

He signed it with the date, and closed the book, chuckling.

Then he got into the virtual reality machine and turned it on.

For the past few years Lucilius had been part of a scientific research group that was probing the potential utility of quantum entanglement for the purposes of a better telephone, but the entire team was so hung up on the whole problem that research had essentially ground to a halt.

Never taking anything quite so seriously, Lucilius decided the group should take a little vacation, and Lucilius had spent the first half of his vacation programing his virtual reality trip.

It was the ultimate RPG, but it essentially sent Lucilius back to the lab.  But Lucilius had programmed this virtual reality to adhere to the tendencies of real life only sometimes.  Indeed, what else is the point of virtual reality?

Lucilius had wondered if all the brains of the research team had stagnated in a sort of stalemate with reality and an understanding of that reality.  He figured that since the underlying laws of the universe are probably stable to some degree, then perhaps that stability was part of the reason the research teams’ efforts to understand had stagnated and likewise reached a point of stability, albeit an unproductive one.  Lucilius figured that if his brain could have an experience of reality that was literally unreal then it might stir his brain out of that stable stagnation and into a more creative agitation that might be able to then study reality once more in a fresh and productive fashion.

So Lucilius had designed a virtual situation where he discovers the answer that the research team is looking for after many months of research in this unreality. 

Luckily, the technology of virtual reality had progressed to the point where time could be compressed and a day in the virtual reality machine would take only a minute in real life.

The machine clicked on and instantly the A.I. program started popping out handwritten journals that looked identical in nature to Lucilius’ real journals.

After twelve hours, the final journal was scribbled in and the I.V. of Mnemectomol delivered a dose that erased Lucilius’ entire memory of the time in virtual reality and the time he had spent setting up the trick and even up to and including the moment when he’d had the whole crazy idea in the first place.

Lucilius emerged, somewhat dazed and confused and looked around at his surroundings.  He noticed the small stack of journals that looked very much like his own.  Before questioning further where he was and how he had gotten their, Lucilius picked up the first book and started reading.  It was indeed his handwriting but it spoke of an experience he had never had. 

He kept reading and before long, he phoned his counterpart on the research team and exclaimed with excitement that he had an idea about what they should do next.  It didn’t make perfect sense but it was something they definitely hadn’t tried before.

By the time the automated Uber had dropped him off at the lab, he was nearing the last page of the last journal and already had half a dozen ideas about what they could do.

As he walked into the lab, he turned the last page and saw that it was a palimpsest.  His handwriting was overlaid on top of a message in the same handwriting that said:

It was all a dream.  Go get’em tiger.