INACCURATE GUT

March 9th, 2021

Everyone says follow your gut. Personally, I’ve done this plenty and distressingly often found myself in some less than ideal situations. So what’s the deal? Can you have an inaccurate gut feeling?

There is something a bit frou frou about gut feelings and how confident we are in them. It’s easy to have faith in a gut feeling because it lacks all specificity, like astrology. We can read pretty much whatever we want into a horoscope and they apply pretty much evenly to anyone who is willing to look for meaning. Is the same not true of gut feelings? Perhaps if you’re a person who has faith in both, you’re either done exploring this point, and perhaps also in dire need of exploring it further…

We gravitate to this idea that there is some kind of eternal order, some ‘higher plan’ that we get little glimpses of through things as squishy as horoscopes and gut feelings. It’s comforting to think that at the grandest level, something sort of has our back. This is also the same root for many conspiracy theories. Though they are negative, it’s perversely reassuring that humans would be capable of such difficult high-wire acts of cooperations in covert circumstances. Believing in a conspiracy theory is an odd way of saying “we can actually do that!”

All of these things, whether nonsense or not hinge upon our ever present need for some certainty. The urge is understandable. Uncertainty can often be a difficult, nervous entity to deal with. Certainty is the exact opposite, it is comforting and relaxing.

But, the detriment comes from being certain about something which is wrong. Then all the uncertainty and chaos heaps on all at once and the situation is even harder to deal with than a constant smaller stream of uncertainty.

So what would be the tempered, more rounded version of a gut feeling?

A hunch.

What exactly is the difference between a hunch and a gut feeling? At first glance they seem to be the same thing. They may come from the same place in terms of sensation, but they fork and venture off into importantly different directions.

Whereas one person might steam headfirst into a situation based on a gut feeling, another person tentatively explores based on a hunch.

Whereas a gut feeling can justify a certainty about one’s behavior, a hunch designs in a skepticism by injecting curiosity.

This is, most certainly the best way to deal with uncertainty and to explore the unknown productively: by tossing out stepping stones formed of curiosity, based, on a hunch.

RIVALNYM: PASSION & ADDICTION

March 8th, 2021

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a Rivalnym, it is a name coined here on Tinkered Thinking to address a certain class of word pairs that fall in a strange place between synonyms and antonyms. A rivalnym is a pair of words that are somewhat synonymous in literal meaning, but opposite in terms for the emotional valence we ascribe to the thing being described.

One example is ‘nervous’ and ‘excited’.

One is generally positive. Excited. And ‘nervous’ is generally the more negatively valenced. And yet, what registers our excitement? Our nerves. And when we are nervous, is it not because our nerves are in an excited state?

Certainly that description is undergoing a sneaky change in context, expanding and re-narrowing in on other details in order to create meaningful bridges, but it’s undoubtedly an accurate description of the words and the connections to their meanings. The curious phenomenon of the rivalnym arises only when we line them up against one another.

So what happens when we line up passion and addiction?

And to clarify, the specific version of the word ‘passion’ here would be ‘a passion’ . As in, something someone likes to do with intensity and regularity. This is not to make a specific comment on all the possible uses and definitions of the word ‘passion’.

One is certainly positive, and the other far from, but at the same time, there is an eerie similarity between the two. One thing to point out is that addiction has been studied far more specifically than passion, and so addiction as a word, a concept and a phenomenon is laden with an extra layer of medical, biological, and neurological associations. It would, however be a mistake to assume that such a detailed and studied set of associations couldn’t exist for passion. They are both phenomena of behaviour, meaning they both have a robust set of biological and neurological correlates. We just don’t know as much about those associations for passion.

There is a third word that aptly links up these two words and could perhaps replace one of them to create a somewhat equivalent rivalnym:

obsession.

We might say that passion is a long-term obsession, since an obsession can and is often fairly fleeting. And we may say the same about addiction - that it is a long-term obsession. Though perhaps not an agreeable nor even willing obsession. And this may be the core difference. While people who are unwaveringly dedicated to their passion might invoke the choiceless associations of an addiction to underscore some sort of ethereal notion that it is ‘their calling’, ‘their purpose’, and what they were ‘designed to do’, there is still a much greater degree of freedom and choice between a passion and an addiction. Even if a passion is getting in the way of personal relationships and responsibilities, the difference between this occurring with a passion and an addiction is that presumably the passion will yield some kind of positive long-term result, whereas an addiction in the truest sense of the phenomenon has neither good short-term results nor long term ones, even though both are typified by an urgency to displace that can displace other things.

While the differences between a passion and an addiction v very well have drastically different compositions in the function of the brain, perhaps the relatable difference is best captured by a question:

What would happen if I sincerely wanted to stop?

The difference isn’t necessarily in whether or not the behavior can be stopped, but rather what that process of change would look like.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: WAITING FOR NOW

March 7th, 2021

Lucilius held the hand until it grew cold.  He closed his eyes, his mind awash in memory, each coming to him as though gently touched and treasured as though the mere hope might keep them from fading in the scrapbook of his mind.  Eventually, he put the cold hand down, leaned over and kissed the forehead, and whispered, 

“Goodbye old friend.”

He left the room and the nurse noticed from looking at a clipboard.  A flat and loving smile pressed to her face, and Lucilius gently nodded.  Her eyes closed a moment and her smile deepened, seeing Lucilius’ care.

He was adrift in the odd sensation as he wandered randomly the halls, paying no attention to direction.  Eventually he found himself sitting, looking out high windows at the world out there, far away, it’s little goings like some mute and microscopic movie.

The squeak of a wheelchair rolled near and the viced squeal of a breaks clamped on.

“I’ll be back in a bit, ok honey?” The nurse whispered.

Lucilius looked over to see a boy, bald and frail, small in the wheelchair, his tired skinny arms propped up on the rests.  His face was blank, but it was something beyond boredom, something  resigned and inevitable. 

The two stared steady out the window, quiet until the boy spoke.

“Coming or going?”

Lucilius slowly looked over, unsure if the boy was talking to him, but there was no one else within earshot.

“What do you mean?”

The boy looked back at him.  “Who you’re here for.  They’re either coming or going.  I mean, you’re a civi.”

“Civi?”  Lucilius queried.

The boy pinched his hospital gown and then raised the hand with the I.V. taped in.  “You don’t have a combat uniform.  You’re in civies, obviously you’re a civilian.”

Lucilius smiled.  He nodded.  “Dead give-away.”

“So?” The boy continued, “are you waiting for someone who is coming or going?”

Lucilius breathed deeply and sighed.  “Not waiting on anything now.”

The boy thought for a moment about the unusual response and then pieced it together.  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

The two shared a moment in silence before the boy picked up the thought again.  “Did you have to wait long?”

Lucilius gave him a bit of a puzzled look.  “I wasn’t really waiting.”

The boy looked instantly skeptical.  “Everyone is waiting here.  That’s all anyone does in this place.  They even have a room named for it.”

Lucilius laughed. “You have a point.”

The two returned to their peaceful movie of the grey scene outside and Lucilius mulled over the idea. His eyebrows raised in realization.  “You know, you might be more right than you realize.”

The boy wore a satisfied and curious look as he turned back to Lucilius. “…go on…..” He said rather satisfied with himself.

Lucilius turned to look at the boy again.  “If you’re in a combat uniform you’re waiting to get out.”

“-or the other thing,” the boy interrupted with.

Lucilius nodded in slow respect.  “..or that.”  He let the gravity of the idea sink in before he continued.  “But when you get out you’re gonna start waiting all over again, just like all the other kids.”

Lucilius feigned as though he were finished speaking and turned his attention back to the grey and now rainy movie, as though he were satisfied with the end now passed.

“What do you mean?” the boy asked, now with real curiosity infused with confusion and urgency.

“Kids are all waiting for the same thing,” Lucilius said, his eyes locked on the distant sight of a tanker slowly drawing anchor in the harbour far out in the view.

The boy carefully felt out the next moment, sensitive to the possibility of ruining a continuation by saying something, but asked “what are they waiting for?”

Lucilius had the boy’s attention and he cherished an invisible smile.  Casually he looked again and held the boy’s gaze again.

“Kids are all waiting to be grown ups, because they think things’ll be different then.  That’s when they’ll really be able to doooo something.”

The boy grew more interested, his curiosity tempered by skepticism.  

“And you know what adults do?”  Lucilius asked.

The boy slowly shook his head, wondering where this would go.

“They wait too.”

“For what?” The boy blurted.

Lucilius shrugged.  “For the weekend, for five p.m. when they get to leave work.  For the vacation next month, for test results they’re nervous about, and eventually, they find they’re waiting for retirement.  And then, when an adult finally retires.”  Lucilius leaned toward the boy, drawing out the silent break in the story of his point.  “They realize they never really even knew what they were waiting for.”

He leaned back, pleased with his molding of the situation, the particular flavor of attention the boy now had.

“And then what?” The boy asked.

Lucilius shrugged, as though no answer now even mattered.  “Seeing nothing else, they wait for the next obvious thing.”

“And what’s that?”

Lucilius softly and seriously looked at the boy.  “They wait for the end.”

The boy was suspended in a sense of disappointment.  “That’s it?”

Half a smile raised on Lucilius’ face.  “A mistake made in youth has a decent chance of living a lifetime.”

The boy’s colourless brow creased, hooked with the hint.  “What’s the mistake?”

Lucilius deflected.  “I will remember this day forever,” he said slowly, magnificently.  “Not because it’s sad, but because I’m honored.  Honored because this person wanted to spend those last moments with me.”  He leaned closer to the boy.  “Wow,” he said.  “How amazing is that?”

“It’s sad,” the boy responded.  But Lucilius shook his head.

“It’s only sad because of all the good times we had together, so sadness is really an expression of happiness.  If we didn’t have those good times together, then I’d feel nothing.”

The boy’s eyes flicked away in thought, but he returned fast.  “Wait, so what’s the mistake?”

“The mistake,” Lucilius said, “is about what we are all waiting for.”

“What is it?”

“Now,” Lucilius said.

“Now?”  The boy said, confused and incredulous.  

Lucilius nodded.  He waved his hand out at the rest of the world.  “So few ever realize it.  They touch it, and taste it every once in a while, when life is intense, usually with happiness or pleasure, but they miss the meaning.  They fail to realize that what those experiences are doing is just brining them into the here and now.  They experience an immediacy that is truly amazing, but they think it has to do with that specific experience so then they start chasing it, trying to recreate it with weekends and vacations and what not, but the funny thing is that they’re always waiting for something that’s always with them.”

“The moment,” the boy said in a quiet, hushed voice.  “How do I do it?  How do I stop waiting for now.”

Lucilius smiled.  “It’s easy.  All those thoughts you’re having?”  He shook his head.  “Just let them go.  All your worries, your thoughts about the future, and the past, and even your thoughts about right now.  Just let them go.  Even what you’re experiencing right now.  The fact that you’re listening to my voice and understanding what I’m saying and looking at me, and this hospital room and the grey view out the window.  Just let everything go, and what you’ll find left over is what you’ve been waiting for.”

The boy held Lucilius’ gaze for a moment, and then, slowly, the boy’s face filled with a smile.

ARTIST OF INCENTIVE

March 6th, 2021

Stated priorities rarely match behaviour.  If pressed, we’ll each assemble a very admirable list of things in life that are most important - but that list of priorities is in almost every case, is a fantasy, an ideal that is like a beautiful theory but does not work in practice.  And why?  Why is it that the most important things to us (or so we say) often neglected? Why don’t we spend more time with loved ones?  Why don’t we make more of an effort?  Why don’t we explore that dream?  Why aren’t we healthier, happier, and more fulfilled?

Making a list of priorities is an excellent way of distilling one’s own personal navigation system, and getting reacquainted with what true north is given our own internal compass.  True north, in the case of priorities is, the set of things we can pay attention to that likely leads to our most fulfilling life.

If pressed to explain the discrepancy between our list of priorities and what actually happens, the catchall excuse is not having enough time.  But note how much easier it is to say “I don’t have the time to hang out,” than it is to say “You are not a priority.”

Not having time makes it seem as though something else is in control of our time.  The phrasing is a way of displacing blame to somewhere else, but at the end of the day we are each solely responsible for how we spend out time, regardless of obligations.  Such obligations are often things we’ve chosen to take on as obligations, things we continue to choose as obligations.

Under all of this misaligned behavior resides the subtle and often overlooked issue of incentives.  Wherever there is a behavior, we can be sure there is an incentive, and incentives are clear, present and pressing - they are the reason we do most everything.  We say health is a priority but we are under the spell of a much stronger incentive to open the freezer and take out that tub of ice cream.  Where exactly is the ‘priority’ of health during those repeated moments, occurring far too often during the month, the week, and even the day?

Consider for a moment this thought experiment: let’s change the incentive structure around that tub of ice cream.  The incentive is clear: it tastes good, and the food comma it often provides is pleasant.  But let’s say that for every scoop of ice cream we eat, 100 dollars is automatically transferred from our bank account to an organization we find utterly despicable.  How much ice cream would get eaten?  

Probably very little.  And yet, now, with this strange and unlikely system, the behavior of eating or not eating ice cream is suddenly in line with the priority of health, simply because the incentive structure around the behavior has changed.  It’s an inconvenient fact of reality that priorities do not create incentives.  Priorities are too conceptual, too abstract.  Without some additional thought about incentives to bolster behavior around such priorities, they remain just good ideas.

Incentives on the other hand are far more real.  They manifest as desire and fear - they inspire the core ingredient for human behavior: they generate emotion.  Consumption of sugar begets a desire for more sugar, it form a kind of self-reinforcing incentive, which benefited us for many thousands of years before the advent of sugar now refined in industrial quantities.  Our incentive  was in line with our priority of health because we needed the energy during our time as hunter gatherers.  But now the hardwired incentive is misaligned with our long term goals, and the new challenge is become an engineer and artist of incentive, consciously and thoughtfully designing a life that incentivizes the right things - those priorities.

ANACHRONISTIC EMOTIONS

March 5th, 2021

Most emotions are bad reflexes.  They are rapid-fire suppositional programs for instant behavior.  Behavior that often satisfies some kind of short term threat or desire, but undermines long term cooperation and peace.

This seems strange.  Wouldn’t the evolutionary process hone the utility of emotions to ensure they are fine tuned to our needs and our survival?

Certainly, it’s without a doubt that emotions have been shaped by this process, but what’s important to note is whether or not our current situation resembles the situation in which those emotions were honed.  For the vast majority of time during which our bodies and minds were being shaped under evolutionary pressures we existed within small groups of hunter gatherers - hardly the situation we have today with billions squabbling and squaring on social media platforms.

Robin Dunbar is a British anthropologist who first found a correlation between primate brain size and the average social group size.  His research further gave rise to a proposed number known as “Dunbar’s number” which is the upper limit on the number of individuals that can exist within a stable, cohesive social group.  That number is proposed to be somewhere between 100 and 250.  Now we can certainly be aware of more than 250 people, but our ability to have inter-personal relationships with a number of people larger than 250 just isn’t possible for the vast majority of humans.

Dunbar’s research examines the mean group size of humans before the rise of modern civilization, and as one would expect, human groups have been around Dunbar’s number or far lower for most of the time modern humans have existed.  This means that our emotional hardware is not evolutionarily honed for social media and cities and population numbers that don’t even really register in the conceptual mind.  Our Palaeolithic minds and bodies are essentially living in an alien situation.  What worked for small groups of humans doesn’t seem to work terribly well for massive populations.

But, at least on an individual level, we can edit these default reactions.  Instead of acting upon every emotion that pops up in response to life, we can take the arguably unnatural action of simply not reacting and thereby allow some time for the emotion to subside in order to mindfully take stock of what the best course of action might actually be.

We might even go so far as to note that things like hiking and camping or simply being in the natural world are so conducive to good feelings because our feelings are calibrated for such circumstances.  But it goes beyond this.  The natural world often demands a robust ability to be present and vigilant.  As difficult as this can ordinarily be, in the natural world, it comes more naturally.  Something atavistic arises in the human psyche, and awareness feels far more in tune with surroundings.  This need for presence and our rapid-fire emotional behavior makes sense.  The quintessential example of a predator attacking, or a rival tribe attacking demands the ability to rouse highly motivated behaviour through emotions at a moment’s notice.  Compare this to present day life: many jobs do not require a high degree of presence and we are pressed more and more to think in terms of the future as opposed to reacting to the present.

Where the past calibrated us for the here and now, the present and the future presses us more and more to plan for a further future.