HELPING HAND

January 14th, 2022

Parents are replete with suggestions about what to do.  Be a doctor, a lawyer, you’d be a good engineer, and on and on.  This is perhaps is the one relationship where a push actually works.  Many children grow up trying to fulfill their parents’ dreams for them - and often grudgingly.  All other human relationships seem immune to this kind of push.  Urging a friend to start a business, for example is often wasted breath. 

People generally don’t want genuine suggestions.  Even if those suggestions promise to greatly improve life, people are more interested in reassurance and validation about the path they’re already on.  For the empathetic and the prescient who feel like they see friends and family making the same old mistake over and over, and easily see better direction for such people, this can be a painful fact to grapple with.  Much energy is wasted trying to nudge people in better directions.

Our habits also ossify as we get older.  We wander less and less as the days flit past.  And this fact makes it even more difficult to help someone move in a better direction, simply because moving in any different direction is just less and less likely as a person gets older.  As it’s said, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  This might seem cynical but stereotypes exist for a reason: that being in general, they hold some truth.  It doesn’t mean that people growing older can’t wander and learn, just as stereotypes don’t apply to every single instance of the stereotypical. Every stereotype has exceptions and outliers.  It’s just that the odds for wandering, learning, and changing are against a person as time goes on.

One might think, ok, so it’s the children we should focus on.  This is why we place so much ethereal hope in ‘future generations’, as though this isn’t a bit of a Ponzi scheme that simply kicks the can down the road.  Certainly, life has gotten enormously better since medieval Europe and prehistoric times, so yes, we do seem to have something right when we hope that the children will make the world better, but this shouldn’t in anyway relieve the obligation for the current generations in power to give it a darn good shot.  And a big part of that is being able to adapt, change and iterate toward better outcomes. And most importantly, constantly assume that you are always wrong to some significant degree.

A large part of that is the help we extend to others.  So if it’s so hard to get someone to change, why try and help at all?  As with anything it’s not a matter of to do or to not do, it’s a subtler matter of when and how.  Attempting to help someone who has absolutely no interest in changing is likely not the right time, and given that, there’s likely no viable ‘how’.  The timing is right when someone is wandering or willing to wander.  When someone takes that first step in the direction of a new venture, a new habit, that’s when help can be most effective.  Stepping in to provide something they need that can increase the possibility of taking the next step.  It’s not a matter of changing someone’s direction, but waiting and watching for that moment when they naturally change direction -even slightly and often only briefly.  That’s the moment to look for a way to help.  Such novel efforts often sputter and stall, and people fall back into their old routine.  A helping hand right at the beginning can go a long way and help a person touch a new horizon, but the effort is often wasted if that person isn’t already pointing in a better direction.

WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT?

January 13th, 2022

Often I go to the Tinkered Thinking archives and search a title that I have in mind because, frankly, I don’t know if I’ve written about it already.  But even if another entry of the same name does exist, it wouldn’t matter all that much. It’s possible to write on the same subject every single day and come up with a slightly different take on it every single time.

This is an unappreciated virtue of forgetting. If you made up your mind on a subject and remembered this stance verbatim, where would there be room left over for you to shift and slide into a slightly new position?

Superior argument? Better evidence? If only. Most, if not all of us are nearly impervious to superior arguments and better evidence. There is always a slight-of-hand to be played with language by way of the emotion we operate on. Logic and rationality are held to high regard by many, but the practicality of these tools is vanishingly small compared to the enormous juggernaught of emotion that infuses and pervades all aspects of our lives.

People are never swayed by cogent arguments and tidy evidence - few have the patience, let alone the time for such tedium. It is always a new step in the dance of emotion that changes opinion, perspective and ultimately: behavior. 

Already here, the question has veered from what to write about to what sways people - or doesn’t sway them. In a pleasant way, the latter answers the former. The question has come this way quite often: how do you write so much? How do you think of new ‘content’?

The answer is that a rough draft is nothing more than a torrent of whim and fancy, directed by that fickle navigator: emotion. New writers are often so focused on the question of what to write about that they forgo the question completely - a kind of vicious cycle that is always eating itself to be digested into smaller pieces to be eaten until there is nothing left except a yawning sense of nothing, which easily gives way to a sense of failure.

But in such a situation, the same thing is happening: emotion is simply running it’s course, and when it turns its machinations to self-obsession, the result usually spirals into some kind of self-annihilation. Depression is often characterized with an inward focus on one’s self, and relief from such heavy symptoms often comes when a person figures out that it’s possible to concentrate and focus on things other than the self.

What to write about, is simply a terrible question that should never be asked. Instead of asking it, the best course of action is to simply get words on the page, no matter how garbled or nonsensical they are. The rhythm is quickly found, and what may have started off like a wobbling toddler soon begins to look like a seasoned marathon runner in the final mile toward victory.  The blessing of the written word - unlike the spoken, is that our early and embarrassing turn of phrase can be scratched out, and replaced with something more befitting the rest of the puzzle piece we aim to contribute to the chorus of human thought.

It’s never a question of what to write, but when we will start writing. The rest is a story to be discovered as you create it.

WHERE HAS TINKERED THINKING BEEN?

January 12th, 2022

I’ve been running deep, as the saying goes with submarines. Exactly six months ago, Tinkered Thinking stopped posting new content. There was still a steady stream of tweets on twitter, but as for the main platform here, all went dark.

Truth is, I had a project that I had been working on for a couple years come to a culmination and it simply required all of my time, attention and focus to get off the ground.  And frankly, I couldn’t really think about anything else. Anticipating this stage in the project, I thought I’d have some interesting thoughts as I experienced it, but alas, I remember feeling increasingly stale when it came to: what should I write? (The project is doing quite nicely, in case you’re wondering.)

Six months later, I can confidently say that far more time has elapsed than I anticipated or intended.  But just as good habits can have momentum, so too can a good habit’s absence. To be frank, I haven’t prepared at all, and I’ve only thought about Tinkered Thinking’s resurrection in a tertiary way. But damn, six months feels like a good number, and if I don’t start then and get rolling again, then perhaps I risk never restarting at all?

And what exactly would that mean? What if I simply call it a day and pretend I’ve tied a bow on this pet project?

Well, for one, there’s at least 3 additional books which are fully written that are unreleased, and considering how utterly shocked I was with the success of the first book: Volume I of the Lucilius Parables, it seems like a damn shame not to put in a little extra work to make these other books available. (And to be totally honest, Volume II of the Lucilius Parables is definitely better than Volume I - no joke, and that ain’t skeezy marketing, I genuinely mean it.)

There’s also the issue of Lucilius. He’s definitely the highlight of Tinkered Thinking, and while many of the whimsical non-fiction writings on Tinkered Thinking have resonated with people, the short stories are by far the favorite part.

So what am I to do? Leave Lucilius with just one skimpy volume of 50 stories published? There’s two more volumes waiting in the wings, but beyond that: are the wanderings of Lucilius done?

Well, no. I’ve definitely got more stories hibernating in that wet tangle in my head - I can feel them. But I don’t see them and hear them unless I actively go looking for them. Not only that, I think it’s more than feasible to do at least 5 volumes. That’s 250 stories. And with that many, perhaps there will be enough really good ones to make a very nice, very large, coffee-table style “best-of”. I have a vision of exactly what it would look like in mind, and like many of my ideas, my soul gets restless and a little itchy until I see it in the real world.

So, it does really feel like a betrayal of Lucilius if I were to leave him where he stands right now (though he’d no doubt be content).

The most important factor wrapped up in this conundrum is that I simply miss writing. It’s the easiest part about Tinkered Thinking. Once the words begin to appear on the page, it’s a bit like I’m in a pleasant dream, or watching a movie, but one that I can alter, rewind, edit, recast and mold to suit the fancy of my mental whim. I don’t actually do this rewinding and editing too much though. Part of the curiosity wrapped up in the kernel that birthed Tinkered Thinking is a question of whether or not it’s possible to get better at ‘first drafts’ - to make them feel like second nature, and work towards making them a first nature.

Contrary to this pure satisfaction, however, is the podcast. It was difficult in the beginning and I thought I’d learn to love it, but after 1,000 episodes recorded, I just simply hate doing it. Always, it feels like the biggest chore and I have to drag my whole being through the process. Podcasts are sexy, at least right now. And there’s quite a few examples to show that if you stick with it, it can turn into something.  I’ll have to check on the automated voice software I was using for the last few dozen and see if the process is any smoother. It was definitely a lot quicker, but it still needed quite a bit more babysitting than I’m willing to put in. So for the time being, no podcast. I don’t even care how many listeners it had, and I’m not even going to check. 

I certainly need to put a little more effort into reorganizing Tinkered Thinking so that it can generate a bit more income. I like having a lot of free content, but even donating isn’t particularly easy, nor do supporters get rewarded in any kind of meaningful way, and I’d like to change that. I definitely need to retool some things if the podcast isn’t going to be a part of the platform anymore. But we will see.

The most important thing is that the writing simply continue. The personal ROI on that was simply too juicy, book sales, and readership aside.  All the other stuff, like publishing more books, retooling the site, podcast nonsense, all that can be done later if need be, and they shouldn’t be excuses to put off what I love doing any longer.

So stay tuned. Tinkered Thinking is back.

TINKERED THINKING ON HIATUS

July 15th, 2021

HAPPINESS & COMFORT

June 12th, 2021

What is the difference between happiness and comfort?  The two are clearly related, but the difference is as important as it is overlooked in current times.  The common logic is to maximize comfort.  We have the idea that maximizing comfort should lead to happiness.  If you are completely comfortable, what do you have to complain about?  And if there’s nothing to complain about, shouldn’t that mean you are happy?

Unfortunately not.  The strange thing about happiness is how much discomfort is actually involves.  Perhaps consumerist culture has something to do with this.  Much of our economics is driven by the possibility of giving something easier and more relaxing to the consumer.  Make someone’s life easier and you can make a million.  This is the underlying tenant of all things luxury, and luxury is what everyone pines for, not just because it looks fun and relaxing, but it’s only available to those we deem ‘successful’.  It’s not just a matter of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence.  With the combination of luxury and it’s availability to only the wealthy, The situation on the other side of the fence isn’t just greener grass.  There’s a beach over there, and fancy cars, and pretty people and spectacular trips.  Who needs greener grass when there’s so many better things on offer?

There’s a counter-intuitive asymmetry with the pairing of luxury and success.  Granted some wealthy people are just lucky, they are born into it, but such a fact just isn’t a possibility nor a concern for someone who isn’t lucky in such ways.  The only other alternative is to work very hard and perhaps be smart about exactly what to work hard on and how to work hard.  Certainly there is still a great deal of luck involved in the possibility of significantly levelling up one’s situation into a position of wealth.  But that luck just about always requires a good deal of hard work.  Leisure and hard work are obvious antonyms.  Strangely, we can probably say the same thing about comfort and happiness.

Comfort doesn’t lead to happiness because happiness requires some of the opposite.  The missing key to understanding and generating happiness is that it’s more about viable agency than it is comfort.    Happiness requires effort that actually has an effect.  Effort without the pay off you’re hoping for feels like failure.  And learning is where these two things intersect.  It’s when you put in effort which doesn’t have the effect you were hoping for, but you get feedback on what effect you actually did have which allows you to change your tactic.  Learning is failure plus feedback giving rise to novel effort. 

Maximizing comfort leads to atrophy.  We lose our muscles if we don’t lose them, and if our whole being is too comfort, we’ll lose our skills, and skills are the core of our agency - our ability to have an effect on the world.  Is it any surprise that comfort doesn’t lead to happiness?  Maximizing happiness is, oddly, a lot of work.  But work that is absolutely worth doing.