REINCARNATION

March 4th, 2021

Traditionally reincarnation is an unproved religious belief that something eternal within a person gets transferred after death to a new body and so goes on to live another life. While the jury is out with no evidence on this specific idea, we do experience one form of reincarnation - an inverted form, best captured by a question:

When a person changes their mind, do they become a different person?

The answer is not so straightforward. Certainly such a person remains in the same body, and in that physical way they are certainly the same person, but is a person defined more by the fact that they have a body and exist nowhere other than that body, or by the mind that exists as the conscious operating system of that body?

Getting a haircut is technically an alteration of one’s body. Does this mean that someone is a different person after a haircut? The question seems superficial only because the answer seems as though it’s a ‘no’, but technically speaking, the person is different, albeit just a little bit.

If someone changes their opinion of mayonnaise, do they become a different person? No not really, but technically, yes, a little bit.

These quaint examples bring up the issue of degree. How much needs to change in order to claim that someone is different? People undergo religious conversions, or lose religion all together, escape cults, painfully sever ties with family, and most importantly, learn vastly more than they once knew years ago. It’s likely that most people can look back at a younger self and feel as though they’ve grown and changed since that time. So where are the break points? Perhaps the shifts are slow or perhaps they can be clearly demarcated by specific points and events, but the more important point is that it happens at all. And all the while, the body persists.

The religious version of reincarnation has it backwards. During life we have the potential to reincarnate and live many lives, if only we nurture the ability to change our mind. A new idea can intoxicate and command a mind, and in so doing, a person can become quite different. Certainly much of the mind persists with the body but both can transform radically. Just as the overweight person can transform into a body builder, the violent religious fundamentalist can become a kind and loving person. This is not to say that it’s likely but only to examine that it is possible.

However, even with a radical transformation of the body, this sort of thing also requires a transformation of the mind. It’s a fair argument to say that the mind of an overweight person is different before and after the decision to commit to a very different way of living. The radical change of the body, in this case, is merely a reflection of a radically different mind.

We speak of mental breakdowns and depressions, hitting rock bottom and looking for a way out, but what if these are more like signs of the life cycle of the mind’s current state? All such mental experiences yearn for some kind of change. For things to get better, to make sense in a new way - some improvement is sought after. Suicide is the most extreme expression of a desire for such a change. The logic is brutally straightforward. A person wants something different, and at core what’s needed is a different state of mind, or a new mind altogether. Often people circling such a dark exit try to escape through all manner of intoxication. Of course it’s not the world such people are trying to escape, but themselves, and not their body so much as it’s their mind they are trying to get away from. The suicidal option, unfortunately, fails to take seriously the fact that the mind can undergo dramatic change, that it can almost literally kill itself off while the body sustains the mind’s reincarnation. It’s little surprise that so many people gravitate to the myth of the Phoenix or that the story was created in the first place. We all yearn for transformation into a greater more able version of the person we find ourselves to be, and nothing exemplifies this kind of adventure more than the underdog who has risen from a dark situation.

COOPERATION & CONFLICT

March 3rd, 2021

Everything boils down to a game with the same premise. Religions, governmental systems, economic markets, personal relationships, corporations, everything is a different version of the same exact game that we are all playing. Each is a different lens for approaching the issue of cooperation.

Religions, like governments formulate rules for behavior, and by extension this behavior is almost always interpersonal, in that, besides the prohibitions against suicide, most all rules deal with how others are treated. Or in other words: how we can best cooperate.

A corporation is a more directed form of a government that seeks to organize people and their behavior not just for peace but also to produce a specific outcome. It’s not surprise that some corporations have structures similar to government or that some corporations can develop employees that embody a kind of religious zeal for their work and the company.

The corporation, then, is just one unit of the larger economic market, which is best described with a question regarding it’s connection to cooperation. All economic markets boil down to the issue of: who needs what?

Strangely, productive cooperation often requires a bit of conflict. This is even true on a neurological level. Much of the reason that the brain developed two hemispheres was so they could work together through a kind of conflict. Their primary mode of communicating with one another is through inhibition.

The Wright brothers who famously first achieved human flight were very close but would have magnificent fights about their work. The key to their progress was that neither took these fights personally. They both innately understood that they were both pushing each other so that the shared goal could succeed.

The only thing that we do which is not a form of cooperation is pure conflict. Certainly wars are a conflict between two cooperating bodies of people, but a pure conflict between say just two people is an admission that cooperation is simply not possible.

Interestingly, pure conflict may only be possible between individuals. Groups have enough variation built in that there is always potential for cooperation across group barriers.

HOW TO TINKER

March 2nd, 2021

Kids are natural at tinkering. Observe a kid quietly clicking legos together and you have a perfect image of what tinkering is all about. There’s some easy and valuable observations about tinkering that we can pull from simply imagining that kid with the legos.

First off, is the kid pressed for time?

Almost certainly not. A kid at play is a being in a timeless and eternal world. Play is something you’re always trying to get back to as a kid, and more and more as we grow up it gets harder and harder to return, and eventually it becomes a kind of fabled Neverland. We end up replacing play with pleasure and other feeble pursuits.

Second, is the kid tied to a specific outcome?

Perhaps. But not necessarily. Tinkering, especially in the case of a child is more about just exploring what something can do, what it can become rather than trying to force something into a particular configuration. Imagined configurations are often just casual tests to explore what is possible. Notice again how at odds this mode of exploration is with the adult world. We aren’t paid to explore what’s possible, we’re paid with a specific agreed upon end in mind - you get paid to make it happen.

Now the tinkering situation of the child and that of the adult seem at total odds with one another, but conflict rarely precludes cooperation of some kind. Kids rarely if ever achieve anything grand on their own because they aren’t capable of giving themselves constraints in the ways adults can. Constraints, like a deadline and a specific vision are ultimately what get things done.

The idea here is to eschew the world of either-or and think about how these conflicting states can be merged.

Instead of all the time in the world, plan on more time than needed. Instead of an ironclad vision, think of branching possibilities that all functionally achieve the same thing.

The way to incorporate the mindset of tinkering is to ultimately create the conditions necessary for curiosity to naturally arise. Chronic stress and a packed schedule probably create the most potent form of kryptonite for curiosity. Which means it requires the two most sought after things in the world: time and a relaxed state of mind. Fortunately, the time aspect can be scheduled but we just simply never think to schedule in time for curiosity or to tinker with something. Such considerations are usually relegated to the realm of pet hobbies which always get the short end of the stick when it comes to our most valuable resources: time and energy.

To tinker is, in some sense, to return to those absorbed moments of childhood. It’s how we learn, or at least, it’s how we used to learn before some adults got it in their head that we could be taught.

RELATIVE WORTH

March 1st, 2021

There is nothing more delicious than a morsel of food after days without eating. Likewise there is no money more proud than that given in thanks by a poor man. As a species we don’t calibrate to a universal baseline. We are relative, comparing our success to the neighbour, and the dulled taste of that cake to something in the past that was inevitably better.

The brain is outfitted with all sorts of mechanisms that create this trend to constantly ratchet things up. The most extreme example of this is addiction, which becomes all consuming and completely unsatisfying. The pursuit of such extremes result in a diverging of effect. While the poor man is extremely proud of his ability to give a gift, the rich man waves it off and calls it nothing.

This presents a problem for fundamental aspects of living like happiness, peace of mind and fulfillment. The chase for better is born of a fear that the best is in the past. But this assumes that we cannot achieve the same level of good, just in a different time and a different circumstance. What’s often needed is a return to a personal baseline. Sugar eaten every day ceases to be sweet, but a month without any sugar and everything starts tasting a bit sweet, and then when finally a treat is reintroduced it can even be too much - sickly sweet since the recipe is likely tailored to those who are inured to the taste.

It’s a platitude to claim that happiness lies in the refusal to chase pleasures, but this is too polar, not to mention, unrealistic. Happiness lies, not in total denial of the search for pleasure nor a gorging on pleasure, but mindful calibration away from both extremes. It’s not moderation in the usual daily sense, but it is in the long term. Each extreme, whether it be reckless indulging or total abstinence, neither hold what they promise, but when the two are paired and thoughtfully pitted against one another, we can get the best of both worlds without falling into the trap each presents.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: SERIF'S SIGN

February 28th, 2021

The flooded cleft of the nib closed as it’s pressure on the page lessened and lifted, leaving a perfect winnowed curve.  A final serif.  Lucilius returned the pen to the ornate holder where his ink well was enshrined in carved wood.  He closed the metal cap to protect the ink, and then looked over his work.

The page was a perfection of design.  He bent down close to the paper, as he would while writing and looked at each and every letter.  There were no mistakes.  

He sat until the page was dry, having long known the look of ink in its different stages on the page.  Knowing the bleed of this particular mixture - his own in fact, perfected over the years of his apprenticeship.

The sheen and shade settled and Lucilius picked up the document.  He opened the heavy wooden door to his tiny room and left down the quiet hall, the footfalls on stone echoing lightly.

He brought the page to the master’s quarters, but the man was outside his own study, pacing, agitated.  He did not notice Lucilius until he was but a step away, with the sheet of paper proffered.  The man glanced quickly at Lucilius’ face, taking the paper.  And for a moment, the man’s agitation was gone, his pacing cured.  His eyes were enveloped in an old process, scanning, the forms and shapes.  But all too quickly he handed the sheet back and started pacing again.

Confused, Lucilius just waited, wondering.  The man took a few more steps before seeing Lucilius unmoved.

“You have passed, you will receive your first batch of work tomorrow along with your first pay.”

Lucilius was overjoyed, having long awaited this moment.  But something still didn’t sit right with him.  Perhaps it was the quick, cursory words, the fact that the long awaited moment had none of the celebration and pomp that Lucilius had been lead to expect and dream of.  Or perhaps it was simply that the man before him seemed so worried.

“Is everything ok?”

The man stopped, as though realizing again Lucilius had still not left.  “Johannes.. the fiend, he’s done it.”

“Who?”

The man was silent a moment.  “An old friend," he said softly.

“What has he done?”

The man nodded toward his study, and Lucilius followed, walking into the luxurious room where on the desk there was a book.  It was somehow different, Lucilius could see instantly, but for a moment he could not figure it out.  He leaned in to the open page, looking at the letters, somehow strange, somehow inhuman.  Lucilius’s skilled eye could see known of the subtle marks of ink doubled up where serifs branched, where letter limbs crossed and joined. It’s perfection was deeply unsettling for Lucilius.  Somehow it seemed to represent everything he had been striving for, and yet the result was ugly, horrid and an offence.

He turned to the master scribe who now stood at his side.

“What is this?”

“Devil’s work, Johannes has made his press. He thinks he will strip us of our pride but this can never achieve what we do.”  Though the man spoke quietly he was shaking with anger.

“A press?” Lucilius asked.

The man merely shook his head.

And all at once it occurred to Lucilius. His sense of disgust fuelled by so many years of work, so many pained hours of imperfection and striving, to do what could now be done in an instant.  He had known what that book meant the moment he’d seen it.  What he’d taken for ugly repulsed him only because it made a joke of this life’s work now culminated.  He’d been wrong.  But it was no matter, Lucilius knew.  He smiled lightly, and the Master scribe’s brow furrowed in confused disgust.

Months later, Lucilius squinted up at the bright sun.  His pay had long run out and the journey had been long, but he was pleased, grateful to live during such an exciting time.  The cold air felt fresh in his lungs as he picked up his small pack to make the final trek into the new city.  It was there after much asking that he finally found what he was looking for.  When he entered his eyes adjusted to fill with the sight of a contraption he’d never seen, as though collaged from so many things he’d seen built over the years, but this one, a machine being fed paper.  Someone paused from the work and asked about him.

“I’m here to help with your press,” Lucilius said, knowing he stood on the precipice of the future, knowing what torrent would soon flood the world by way of a new idea that had finally taken as it’s genius the spread of other ideas.