tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8093232438379626192024-03-05T03:16:31.646-05:0070 Years Old. WTF!Really? 70? Inconceivable!Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.comBlogger571125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-41241670588057483792021-01-28T13:10:00.003-05:002021-01-28T13:23:55.734-05:00Communication and ideas<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/4124167058805748379" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> Human communication is a kind of miracle.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Think about it. I have an idea in my mind. In spoken communication, I make a bunch of noises that represent agreed-on noises we call words. You hear the noises translate them to words and end up with an idea of your mind similar to—yet different from— the one that’s in my mind.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It’s all mysterious and miraculous. That we are alive at all is a kind of miracle. That we each have minds. That we have ideas in our minds. And most miraculous of all that I can make noises and cause an idea, like one in my mind appear in yours.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The ideas will be different, of course, and we know that. And we know that we can make our ideas more similar by repeating the process. You make some noises expressing something about the idea in your mind. I now have two ideas in my mind: my original idea and an idea that represents the copy that’s in your mind. I make some noises about the differences. You adjust the idea in your mind and I in mine. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And so the dance goes on.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Same for written communication. I have an idea in my mind. I translate it into words that represent that idea. The words appear to you as pixels on a screen. You translate the pixels back into words and the words into an </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That we can communicate with words is also a kind of miracle. Each word is a symbol that means something to the sender and something different to the receiver! My meaning for the word “table” comes from my experience. Your meaning comes from your experience. Most of the things that I have experienced that I would call “tables” are different from most things you would call “tables.” We might have some tables in common, but most are different. And even the ones we share have been seen from different perspectives and different times.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So without agreeing precisely on what a “table” is, we can talk about tables. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Even more miraculous, we can talk about “freedom” and “thought” and “truth” and “beauty.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Most of our “source code” is the same, which might explain the miracle in part. My DNA and your DNA produce similar foundations (our bodies) that encode common basic ideas—like those that underly the experience that we call “pain” and “pleasure.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My DNA may make it possible for me to have the experiences I call “red” and “green.” Yours does not because your DNA makes you color blind.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Out of these shared priors, we can communicate, develop new ideas, and share rough copies of the ones we have. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Our ideas must all be grounded in our bodily experiences, which are in turn grounded in our shared source code. But ideas can rise through abstraction levels to include ideas like love, truth, miracle, and God.</p>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Knowledge is a kind of information. Here’s <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2021/01/information.html">my gloss on his definition of information</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Knowledge is a kind of information that the environment tends to cause to persist. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It can be used to achieve physical transformations. It is necessary to achieve most physical transformations that are possible. The overwhelming number of things that are possible require knowledge.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Knowledge does not require a knower.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The knowledge that a particular organism requires to make a specific protein is encoded in DNA. It is knowledge, not merely information, because the environment has caused that information to persist.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That sort of knowledge has not had a knower—until very recently. And there may still be aspects of that knowledge that are not known by any knower.</p>
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<div style="font-size: 0em; height: 0; margin: 0; max-height: 0; max-width: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0; width: 0;" title="MDH:PHA+PGJyPjwvcD48cD5bRGF2aWQgRGV1dHNjaF0oaHR0cHM6Ly9lbi53aWtpcGVkaWEub3JnL3dp
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Pg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-68752276367096928902021-01-23T21:40:00.001-05:002021-01-23T21:40:07.965-05:00Information<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/6875227636709692890" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch">David Deutsch</a> gives definitions of knowledge and information that I like.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">He’s developed a mathematically representable theory, called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructor_theory">Constructor theory</a> that includes a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.5563">Constructor Theory of Information</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here is my rendering of Deutsch’s ideas.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Information is something that is not material but which requires a material substrate for its existence.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Information cannot be created nor destroyed.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The same information can be instantiated in different substrates. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In computer communication, information might be encoded in the memory system of one device, translated into electromagnetic phenomena, transmitted through space or through wires, and ultimately to another device’s memory systems.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In human communication, information embedded in one brain’s substrate is translated into neural firings, then sound vibrations, and then ultimately in the substrate of another brain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">At its most basic level, information requires a material substrate that had attributes that can take on different values.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A piece of information exists when an attribute could be other than it is.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Simple.</p>
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YXQgY2FuIHRha2Ugb24gZGlmZmVyZW50IHZhbHVlcy48L3A+PHA+PGJyPjwvcD48cD5BIHBpZWNl
IG9mIGluZm9ybWF0aW9uIGV4aXN0cyB3aGVuIGFuIGF0dHJpYnV0ZSBjb3VsZCBiZSBvdGhlciB0
aGFuIGl0IGlzLjwvcD48cD48YnI+PC9wPjxwPlNpbXBsZS48L3A+PHA+PGJyPjwvcD48cD4mbHQ7
YSBocmVmPSJodHRwczovL2ZlZWRidXJuZXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS9mYi9hL21haWx2ZXJpZnk/dXJp
PTcwWWVhcnNPbGRXdGYmYW1wO2FtcDtsb2M9ZW5fVVMiJmd0O0NsaWNrIGhlcmUgdG8gc3Vic2Ny
aWJlIHRvIDcwIFllYXJzIE9sZC4gV1RGISBieSBFbWFpbCZsdDsvYSZndDs8L3A+"></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-79590286912571213852021-01-23T19:10:00.004-05:002021-01-23T21:41:37.688-05:00Illusions<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/7959028691257121385" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Everything in <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2021/01/consciousness.html">consciousness</a> must be an illusion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If that’s true (and I think it must be), then what is real?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In “Waking Up,” Sam Harris says: When you examine something carefully, and it changes, that’s a sign that it might be an illusion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">He encourages readers to examine “the self” to see if it’s an illusion or not.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I examined my idea of self, and I found it to be an illusion. YMMV.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But if the self is also an illusion, then what is real?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The way to find out—if there is a way—is the same. Examine an illusion carefully, and you may see the reality that lies behind it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Magic tricks are well-crafted illusions. Magicians are properly called “illusionists.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Excellent tricks remain illusions even when examined carefully by people who don’t know the trick. But once you know what to look for, the reality behind the illusion is often quickly revealed.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seeing through an illusion may not make any difference. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Knowing how an illusion is created might take away the fun.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But it might also reveal new ways of interacting with the world.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Carefully examining the illusions present in conscious experience may reveal a useful underlying reality.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Or it may be a waste of time.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My money (and time) is on “useful.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">YMMV</p>
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byBzdWJzY3JpYmUgdG8gNzAgWWVhcnMgT2xkLiBXVEYhIGJ5IEVtYWlsXShodHRwczovL2ZlZWRi
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Yz1lbl9VUyk8L3A+PHA+PGJyPjwvcD48cD48YnI+PC9wPg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-43153618431982188982021-01-23T18:52:00.009-05:002021-01-23T18:54:31.738-05:00Consciousness<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/4315361843198218898" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s a paradox. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Consciousness is the only thing of which we can be certain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Yet, everything that appears in consciousness is an illusion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We categorize what arises in consciousness as “ideas” and “reality.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But what we call “reality” cannot be real. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It must be the product of our nervous systems creating order from sense data. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What we call “reality” must be an illusion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What we call “ideas” are abstractions based on the illusions that we call “reality.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Ideas are not real, either.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So consciousness—the only thing we can be sure of—contains only illusions and abstractions of illusions.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That seems paradoxical.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Is there something more to consciousness than that?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think that there might be.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think, therefore I am.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I seek, and I might find.</p>
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<div style="font-size: 0em; height: 0; margin: 0; max-height: 0; max-width: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0; width: 0;" title="MDH:PHA+SGVyZSdzIGEgcGFyYWRveC4mbmJzcDs8L3A+PHA+PGJyPjwvcD48cD5Db25zY2lvdXNuZXNz
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cD4="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-17723156038248299312021-01-23T17:17:00.002-05:002021-01-23T17:18:07.384-05:00Self-discipline: a mistake<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/1772315603824829931" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> Today realized that I have been making a mistake by trying to solve problems by developing self-discipline.</p>
<h1 id="what-was-i-thinking-" style="font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What was I thinking?</h1>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I wrote this post a while back, <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2019/05/jocko-wilnicks-three-principles-for.html">Jocko Wilnick’s three principles for success</a></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I quoted Wilnick saying this:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You can’t count on motivation to be there when you need to get through truly challenging times. But you can count on discipline.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I thought it made sense. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now I realize it’s a mistake.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">YMMV, but for me, it’s a mistake.</p>
<h1 id="what-is-discipline-" style="font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What is discipline?</h1>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s the definition: </p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><strong>discipline</strong>: the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Really, Mike? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You want to make yourself follow fucking rules? Since when?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You want obedience? Since when?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You want to use punishment to get obedience? Since when?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This is so utterly wrong for me I can’t believe I thought it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I can’t believe I bought it.</p>
<h1 id="what-is-inspiration-" style="font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What is inspiration?</h1>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s the canonical definition of inspiration:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><em>inspiration</em>: the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s my definition:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><strong>inspiration</strong>: to be filled with the spirit</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What spirit?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The spirit of creativity. The spirit of love. Maybe some Holy Spirit. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I don’t know. Whatever spirit comes, I’ll let it fill me up. I’ll let the spirit call me. Then I will do what I am called to do. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Like writing this.</p>
<h1 id="what-if-there-s-no-inspiration-" style="font-size: 1.6em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What if there’s no inspiration?</h1>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There have been times when I’ve felt no inspiration. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I thought that discipline was the answer. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Really? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Rule following with punishment for disobedience? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Really?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now I have a better idea.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">No inspiration? Ask for it. Not there? Ask again. Wait and ask. Keep asking.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Does this sounds familiar:<br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_7:7%E2%80%938#:~:text=7%20Ask%2C%20and%20it%20shall,you">“Ask and it shall be given you.”</a></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think that’s the answer for me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Not fucking discipline.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
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cnMgT2xkLiBXVEYhIGJ5IEVtYWlsJmx0Oy9hJmd0OzwvcD4="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-31177463721561587162020-12-29T21:43:00.001-05:002020-12-29T21:43:33.906-05:00Prospective retrospective<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/3117746372156158716" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Tomorrow is my birthday, assuming that I publish this today–and I predict that I will.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I spent the morning catching up with my friend Elsa. This post is dedicated to her because I needed a better reason to post than it’s the day before my birthday. So I said I would, and now I won’t disappoint. Anyone else want a post dedicated to them? Ask, and you shall be given.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s part of the chat:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Do you remember when you were coaching me and we made a plan and you checked in with me and I said that the plan had failed and that I was not surprised?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I realized that I made lots of plans that (if I had been asked) I would have predicted would have failed. But I never had asked</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So we came up with a new process. Make a plan. Predict the outcome. If the prediction was failure, then predict reasons for failure, take them into account in the plan.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The goal was a plan that would either succeed or if it failed would fail in an unexpected way</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Quoting from <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2018/10/predicting-this-post-and-other-plans.html">a blog post</a>:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I remembered an earlier time, working with Elsa, my personal coach. I’d made a plan and didn’t do what I had planned to do. When we talked about it, I said that I wasn’t surprised that my plan had failed. I’d made plans that had failed hundreds of times before. My failure was unsurprising. We then worked to make a plan that might fail—but whose failure would at least be surprising.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Haha I could have saved all that typing just by quoting Past Me</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Fucking brilliant guy, Past Me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Indeed!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Moving backward: I started chatting with her because last night, as I was drafting a post, I asked myself whether or not I’d end up finishing and posting it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What did I predict I would do?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I predicted that I would not. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I was right.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But before I was right, I thought: if I’m intending to publish a blog post and predict that I will not do it, then there’s something wrong.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And that reminded me of Elsa.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Something was wrong. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I set out to discover what was wrong and correct it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This post provides some evidence that I’m on the right track.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Meanwhile, I’m going to post this one and make my prediction accurate.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I want to compare arete with commonly chosen alternatives: adequacy and mediocrity.</p>
<h2 id="fitness" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Fitness</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Let’s start with fitness.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Fitness means “being suitable for a specific task or purpose.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The task or purpose defines the level of fitness needed for its doing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some tasks demand excellence, but most do not. They only what is adequate to do the job.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I will call that minimal level of fitness “bare adequacy.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Sufficiency, in contrast to adequacy, would provide a comfortable margin of fitness.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Bare adequacy is the minimum.</p>
<h2 id="mediocrity" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Mediocrity</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Mediocrity means being “in a middle state.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The word carries negative connotations, but I’ll use it neutrally.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">To carry out a task requires bare adequacy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">To carry it out with a comfortable margin for failure requires sufficiency.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">To carry it out in the best possible way would require excellence—arete.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">To carry it out in ways that are better than barely adequate, yet less than excellent would be to carry it out in a mediocre way.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Mediocrity is sufficient, by definition.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Mediocrity is inevitably popular and acceptable because, on average, people are average.</p>
<h2 id="the-average-person-is-average" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">The average person is average</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How could it be otherwise?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Only the most capable people doing their best can achieve excellence. Some do, and this sets that standard for excellence.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some competent people routinely do less than their best. They strive for some level of fitness, often to be above average, but not for arete.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Why is this?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The common wisdom is that efficiency has replaced arete as a virtue.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It’s possible to both seek efficiency and excellence, but an acceptable level of efficiency is deemed sufficient in general.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People reward others for doing what it takes to get by with a modest cushion for error.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If there’s no benefit to doing a better job, we’re told, don’t waste the resources.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But every decision to do that is a secret vote for mediocrity.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It’s a vote for mediocrity for yourself, your children, and the world around you.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Vote arete, I say!</p>
<h2 id="being-better-than-average" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Being better than average</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Most people want to be above average—but not too much above average. There are social reasons for this.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If everyone did their best, then people with average talents would have to do their best just to achieve an average performance.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There was a time when getting a “gentleman’s C” was the norm.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I was at MIT we were graded on the curve. Everyone could do the math (of course). People who raised class average made it harder for everyone less talented to get a passing grade. The best were both admired and resented.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And in truth, how could one strive for excellence in a system where that caused needless suffering? Was causing others to suffer a virtuous act?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Luckily for average people, not everyone does their best. People who can do better than average can do less than their best and still be above average. And they do.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The more capable a person, the further from arete they can move and still pat themselves on the back for being above average.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This pulls the average down.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So average people can do their best and be better than average. In some cases, considerably better.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Or average people can be efficient and settle for just above average. They’re never going to be excellent, and who cares what level of mediocrity they reach?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But anyone doing their best can still achieve personal excellence.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Unfortunately, few applaud them for that, and no one teaches them to commend themselves.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In this kind of system, there are powerful reasons for people to vote for mediocrity.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Senator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Hruska">Roman Hruska</a> got his fifteen minutes of fame defending mediocrity. </p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In 1970, Hruska addressed the Senate, urging them to confirm Richard Nixon’s nomination of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Harrold_Carswell" title="G. Harrold Carswell">G. Harrold Carswell</a> to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCOTUS" title="SCOTUS">Supreme Court</a>. Responding to criticism that Carswell had been a mediocre judge, Hruska argued:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brandeis" title="Louis Brandeis">Brandeises</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Frankfurter" title="Felix Frankfurter">Frankfurters</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Cardozo" title="Benjamin Cardozo">Cardozos</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Hruska#cite_note-nyt-obit-11">[11]</a></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="why-arete-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Why arete?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">For the Greeks, (at least the ones we mythologize) arete was a moral virtue. One might as well ask why be moral? Why be virtuous?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In some sense, I’ve always done my best. Indeed, I’ve tried. I wrote <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/7847457360430852803#">about it here: We always do our best.</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve also always aspired to do better—but often did not act in accord with my aspirations.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There was a time when I saw that as a failure of character. Now I see it as a lack of knowledge.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I wanted my kids to be the best—or at least the best they could be. Still do.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My question to them was always: “Did you do your best?” With a little thought (which is a motivation for writing this, might discover a better quetion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Like lots of other people, I want the sports teams that I cheer to be their best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People want their country to be the best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So why not ourselves?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/7847457360430852803#">What I do I teach</a></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I wanted my kids to do their best (and still do).. I could say that it would have been hypocritical not to teach them by example. But I think that the truth is somewhat different and needs exploration.</p>
<h2 id="how-i-see-things-now" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How I see things now</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m not dead yet, and that means I’ve got responsibilities.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I am not working toward personal excellence, I’m casting a vote for mediocrity and teaching everyone around me to vote with me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That is an idea, a bit of knowledge, that I need to keep handy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When people like me, those who can do above-average things, settle for mere fitness instead of arete, we let the average drop.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then the average person can do less and still be above average, and the average drops further.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Do it enough times, and civilization unwinds.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I like to think that what I do makes a difference. The difference may be small, but it is a difference.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m not dead yet, and as long as I’m not, I’ll do my part to Vote Arete! and #keeptheaverageup.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/7847457360430852803#">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
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L2Rpdj4="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-19239762845606778852020-12-08T16:11:00.001-05:002020-12-08T16:11:23.330-05:00Solve for X! Xplained.<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/1923976284560677885" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Dear Future Mike, (my next post <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2020/12/solve-for-x.html">after this one</a> began):</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Your last post was profoundly satisfying to the person who you were during the time you were writing it. It’s also satisfying to who you are at this moment. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I hope you continue to find it as helpful as your Past Selves did.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In case you don’t remember, a series of drafts began with words like “Solving for X” or “Solve for X.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That post was the first draft that you completed. That was when you began to see what “Solve for X” (and eventually “Solve for X!” could mean to you.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you get stuck again, take my advice: Solve for X! </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Again.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> Best Regards,<br /> APS (A Past Self)</p>
<h2 id="solve-for-x-is-a-trick" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Solve for X! is a trick</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Solve for X! is a trick. Today it’s a good trick. Tomorrow it may not work as well. Or at all.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Likey, one day, Solve for X! will become useless. Every other trick I’ve come up with has eventually stopped working, so why not that one?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But right now, it works. So, until it fails, I’ll keep Solving for X!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then I’ll do something else. And later, perhaps, I’ll discover this post or <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2020/12/solve-for-x.html">this one</a> and give it another try.</p>
<h2 id="a-theory-why-solve-for-x-works-for-me" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">A theory: why Solve for X! works for me</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In many past moments, it was a fact that I had a goal. It was a fact that I was doing nothing to progress toward the goal. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In those past moments, based on those facts, I repeatedly drew several conclusions. I concluded that I didn’t know why I was doing nothing; my behavior made no sense.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Each conclusion was an ending. And each carried with it the same hidden assumption: “I don’t know the answer.” And more: “I should know the answer.” And more: “There’s something wrong with me.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But along comes a different assumption. I could define X and solve for it. As I worked with it, the idea of solving for X became Solve for X! It was a kind of rallying cry.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Ideas are alive. They come to me when I invite them—and sometimes they come on their own.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Solve for X! is an idea, and so is each X.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some ideas are familiar, like old friends. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some ideas are unusual. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some are wild.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some ideas contain new information, and new information can open new possibilities.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Like me!” Says the idea, Solve for X!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Like you!” I say, reflecting its enthusiasm.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Solve for X! creates new opportunities. So also can be the ideas, the X’s that are solved for.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I’m what you needed to get this post written,” says an idea. It had appeared when I started to write this post and solved for X.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Actually,” it corrected me, “that’s when you noticed me. I was here before that.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“It was,” another idea agreed. “The universe conserves information. Like all information, knowledge, and ideas (which are, after all, just forms of information), that idea had always been and always will be. It’s been waiting for the time to make its presence known.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Me, too,” it added.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Now is my time!” Said the idea that I had first noticed. “Or was!”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I sat for a moment, thinking idly. I wasn’t completing the post. Then I realized what I needed to do. I solved for X!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Excuse me,” I said to an idea that had distracted me, “I’d like to finish writing this and posting it, and you’re kind of in my way.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Oh, sorry,” said the distracting idea. “I had no idea that I was doing that.” It laughed. “No idea! You get it. I’m an idea and I had no idea!”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I do,” I said. “And thank you. But…”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I know,” said the idea, “I’m still in your way. No problem. I’ll just step aside.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It did. And a few minutes later, I posted this.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a> </p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
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IFdURiEgYnkgRW1haWwmbHQ7L2EmZ3Q7Jm5ic3A7PC9wPg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-37337770694595118882020-12-08T14:19:00.002-05:002020-12-08T16:13:36.770-05:00Solve for X!<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/3733777069459511888" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> Because I’m not dead yet, I can describe how I would like to live the life that remains for me. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">(I might describe it in another post. But not now. This one is about Solving for X! )</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Most of my life is consistent with the description I might write, but there are mismatches—things that I would like to be doing, am physically able to do, and yet not doing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Why would that be?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve puzzled over that for weeks. Maybe months. Perhaps years.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now I have a theory.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My theory is this: something that I believe or have decided must be wrong or unknown.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Let’s call what’s wrong or missing X.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I want to solve for X.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Done,” says a voice in my head. Or some typing at my fingers.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Done what?” I ask.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You’ve solved for X!” Says the voice, or the typing or whatever. “I am X! You’ve solved for me! Now you can get to living the life that you might describe in a later post.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“But I don’t know what X is,” I complain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Of course you do!” Comes the reply. “It’s me! Didn’t you just define me? Am I not here!”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Not exactly,” I say. “I defined the properties of something that I called X. I said that X is what I believe and is incorrect, plus what I don’t know.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Exactly!” came the answer. “That’s what I am! You’ve found me! Get on with your life!”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You mean that’s all I had to do?” I ask. “It seems like cheating.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“It’s not cheating!” comes the answer. “I’m the answer! You’re writing this, aren’t you? You’re going to post it, aren’t you? And then you’ve going to work on some other things, aren’t you?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Which other things?” I ask.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I’ll tell you when it’s time!” is the answer. “You’ll know. All you have to do is Solve for X!”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Meanwhile, post this.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I did.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And then <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2020/12/solve-for-x-xplained.html">I wrote a post explaining it to my future self</a></p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That last made no sense. Me, not want to be happy?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then he explained.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then I got it.</p>
<h2 id="conditional-happiness" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Conditional happiness</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People are willing to be happy, he explains, but only conditionally. “I’ll be happy, but only if I get this. I’ll be happy, but only if they do that.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People don’t want to be happy. They want what they want, and they’ll be miserable if they think it will get them what they want.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People believe that conditional unhappiness is beneficial.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We think that because we’ve been taught to use unhappiness to control ourselves.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We’ve learned to punish ourselves to help ourselves. We’ve learned to torture ourselves to control ourselves.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">De Mello says:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">All I can do for you is help you to unlearn. That’s what learning is all about where spirituality is concerned: unlearning,</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve learned how to be conditionally happy. Now I need to unlearn it and learn just to be happy.</p>
<h2 id="examples-abound" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Examples abound</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I write this blog post, then then I will be happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">No, if I write a post every day, for many days, then I will be happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">No, I’ll only be happy if I write very high-quality posts in great abundance and people love them. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m willing to be conditionally happy. Why not be unconditionally happy? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I can set the conditions for happiness, why not remove those conditions?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m not alone in wanting only conditional happiness.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If my wife/husband/son/daughter/friend stops doing that annoying thing, then I will be happy. Well, maybe not happy. Perhaps just a bit happier. Because they have this other annoying thing that they do. If they stopped doing all those things, then I’d be happy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If my co-workers stop doing stupid things, then I’ll be happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If Donald Trump loses(or wins) the election, I’ll be happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In every case, De Mello points out, we are holding happiness hostage. Being happy does not depend on any of these things, so why make a condition? We can just be happy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I can be happy whether or not I write a blog post. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You can be happy whether or not the people around you are acting like idiots. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We can even be happy while Donald Trump is…well, it’s a stretch, but it’s possible.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">De Mello says: </p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some people make awakening a goal. They are determined to get there; they say, “I refuse to be happy until I’m awakened.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That was me. Unhappy until I’m awakened.</p>
<h2 id="how-did-we-learn" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How did we learn</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I came to believe that conditional happiness (and unhappiness) was useful. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I learned to believe that the way to get what I want is to hold my happiness hostage—to refuse to be happy unless I get it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve used what you might call purposeful unhappiness to get what I want.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Everybody says it. No pain, no gain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Want gain? Have some pain.</p>
<h2 id="pushing-ourselves" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Pushing ourselves</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We who want to improve believe that pushing ourselves is the route to success. We could push ourselves joyfully, but that’s not what we’ve been taught. We’ve been taught to torture ourselves to get better.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We don’t think about it as torture. </p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Torture: the action or practice of inflicting severe pain or suffering on someone to force them to do something</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Want to get better? Make yourself suffer for not doing it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Our parents taught us initially. We continue to refresh the lessons.</p>
<h2 id="how-we-learned" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How we learned</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It started this way.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When we did something that our parents didn’t want us to do, they physically stopped us. They controlled us. And at the same time, they showed unhappiness or even anger. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Like Pavlov’s dogs, we associated their emotions with control. Soon they didn’t have to touch us. They could give us a stern look or talk to us in a certain tone of voice. They conditioned us to obey. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My parents did it to me. I did it to my kids. Sorry, kids.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Kids become conditioned to respond to the unhappiness of adults around them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s a starting point.</p>
<h2 id="teaching-the-happy-to-be-unhappy" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Teaching the happy to be unhappy</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Children are naturally happy. They will happily track mud into the house, happily throw food on the floor, happily bop another kid on the head. When parents reprimand kids for such behavior—and they should—they demand that the kids demonstrate understanding. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Words are not enough. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If a parent remonstrated a happy kid for tracking mud into the house, and the kid apologized but remained happy, most parents would assume (maybe correctly) that the kid didn’t get it, and the apology was not genuine. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The real test of understanding would be: did they track mud in the next time? But no one can wait around for that. So parents train kids to show them that they understand. Unhappiness after a reprimand is acceptable evidence of understanding.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So kids are trained.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Wipe that smile off your face!”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“This is no joke.”</p>
<h2 id="punishment" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Punishment</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When parents deem that some level of expressed unhappiness is insufficient evidence of learning, then—with the best of intentions—and I mean that without irony—parents punish us. If they were to punish us—say by sending us to our room or depriving us of a favorite toy or activity—and we did not demonstrate enough distress, they’d find something that made us more unhappy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The greater the offense, the greater the required degree of misery. All for our own good.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What our parents learned, they taught. They’d learned to punish by being punished. And by punishing us, they taught us to punish ourselves.</p>
<h2 id="anticipating-reprimands-and-punishment" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Anticipating reprimands and punishment</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">They taught us to anticipate their reprimands and punishment and restrain ourselves from doing things they wanted us not to do. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We learned to reprimand ourselves before the fact and punish ourselves—with guilty feelings—after the fact.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s what was done to me. And that’s what I did to my kids. Sorry, kids. If I ever have more kids, I’ll do better.</p>
<h2 id="do-unto-ourselves" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Do unto ourselves</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We learn to get ourselves to do things that we find hard to do by doing to ourselves as was done unto us. We might start by asking ourselves. We might argue with ourselves. And if that doesn’t work, we threaten ourselves, criticize ourselves, punish ourselves, torture ourselves until we do what we want. We might also promise ourselves a reward. But for most people, threats, criticisms, and punishment are important motivators.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If we reach a satisfactory level of success—whatever that might be—we’re happy to relax into a routine. And why not? Things are good. </p>
<h2 id="the-road-to-greater-success" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">The road to greater success</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We know that the way to greater success is more self-threats, self-criticisms, self-doubt, and punishment. We’ve had enough, thank you very much. And please don’t criticize us for not wanting to go further!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If our level of success is not satisfactory, we know why. We didn’t threaten ourselves enough. We didn’t force ourselves enough. Not enough torture. Not enough gain? Must have been not enough pain.</p>
<h2 id="another-way" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Another way</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe that there is another way.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That way is through awareness and understanding.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">De Mello says:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That still leaves us with a big question: Do I do anything to change myself? I’ve got a big surprise for you, lots of good news! You don’t have to do anything. The more you do, the worse it gets. All you have to do is understand.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What can I say here?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I like what De Mello says:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">One cannot say anything about happiness. Happiness cannot be defined. What can be defined is misery. Drop unhappiness and you will know. Love cannot be defined; unlove can. Drop unlove, drop fear, and you will know.</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p> </p>
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cD4="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-92088423306502798342020-11-15T16:50:00.001-05:002020-11-15T16:50:56.201-05:00Do your job, (redux)<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/9208842330650279834" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Jordan Peterson says that we don’t understand ourselves as well as we think we do. If we observe ourselves, we may learn something that we didn’t know about ourselves.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The other day I learned something important about myself: I do my job.</p>
<h2 id="a-projects-guy" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">A projects guy</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Years back, I realized that I couldn’t just call someone up and “catch up on life” the way some people can. I relate to people mainly through projects. Give me a project, and I’m happy to talk. No project? Not so interested. Want to have a relationship with me? Find a project.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I’m a projects guy,” is how I framed that idea about myself. And I wrote <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2016/08/a-projects-guy.html">a blog post</a> about it.</p>
<h2 id="i-do-my-job" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">I do my job</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The other day I realized something else about myself. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I do my job. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I may procrastinate and do my job at the last minute, but if it’s my job, I’ll do it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s the story of how I came to this insight (this time), why it’s important, and why I think it’s going to stick</p>
<h2 id="how-i-got-here" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How I got here</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ll start the story two days ago, as I was considering a fundamental existential question: of what value is my existence? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In other words: why should I continue to live?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My ADD had been in full rage. I was not getting things done that I wanted to get done. I was frustrated and angry and becoming depressed. And I was becoming too tired to try. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I was not suicidal. I’ve been through this cycle often enough to know this will pass.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But still.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What’s the use of living that sort of life?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When shit like that happens to my brain, I’ve found one reliable way through it. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I pull out a computer or a notebook, and I write and write and write.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Eventually, my thoughts clear, and I can get on with life. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This time they got very clear.</p>
<h2 id="does-my-life-have-value-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Does my life have value?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What’s the value of my continued existence? I asked.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I know that Bobbi and the kids (including the kids-by-marriage) would suffer loss if I were not around. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">For there to be loss, there must be value. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So my life had value—to them, if not to me. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I wanted my life to have a different kind of value, and it did not. But that didn’t matter. It had value to them, and it was my job to preserve that value. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It was my job to keep living for them, if not for me.</p>
<h2 id="how-should-i-live-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How should I live?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I could keep living the way that I was at that moment, miserable and frustrated. Or perhaps I could find a way to be happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I continued to live in misery and hid it from the people who loved me, I would be dishonest. And I place a high value on honesty. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I continued to live in misery and revealed it, I would make the people who loved me unhappy. I’d be spreading misery.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So this thought arose: it was not only my job to live, but to be happy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It was my job.</p>
<h3 id="sometimes-it-s-hard-to-be-happy-so-what-" style="font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Sometimes, it’s hard to be happy. So what?</h3>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Flashbulb memory. I remember sitting in a bookstore, in a sunny place, reading a book of quotations. One, my memory tells me, said something similar to what I had just concluded: that it’s our job to be happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When things are going well, it’s easy to be happy. And when things are going badly, it’s hard.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But if it’s my job to be happy, the fact that it’s hard doesn’t matter. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It might take a lot of work. I might try and fail. That’s happened before.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But I can’t think of a realistic situation where I’ve been able to bring about a better outcome by being miserable than being happy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">(To be clear, by “happy,” I don’t mean tra-la-la laughing and giggling. I mean with a calm and aware mind, looking forward to acting to improve whatever situation currently exists, with hope for something better.)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I think well of myself—or anyone—who works at a job that’s not easy if it’s the right thing to do.</p>
<h2 id="it-s-my-job" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">It’s my job</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So, I concluded, being happy may take work, but it’s my job.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And just like that, my attitude changed. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I had a job to do.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I remember a favorite scene from “Person of Interest.” <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001029/?ref_=tt_ch">John Reese</a>, one of the story’s heroes, has been drinking himself to death. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0256237/?ref_=tt_ch">Harold Finch</a> another leading character says:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Finch: I don’t think you need a psychiatrist or a support group, or pills…</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Reese: What do I need?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Finch:: You need a purpose. More specifically, you need a job.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Thinking of being happy as a job changed my mind. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That surprised me. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It made me happy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That also surprised me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I thought about it for a while and realized in addition to being a “projects guy,” I’m a “do your job guy.” Doing hard things when it’s my job has been a pattern in my life.</p>
<h2 id="being-an-extravert-was-my-job" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Being an extravert was my job</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In my working years, I had a lot of public-facing roles. In meetings, I expressed my views. At trade shows, I was quick to start a conversation with a passer-by who might be a customer. On a customer visit, I was happy to be the center of attention. I had little hesitation speaking in front of an audience.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People who knew me in a professional context were often surprised when I said I was an introvert.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You, an introvert?” I was asked more than once. “You don’t seem like an introvert.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I know,” was my answer. “I’m an introvert on my own time. But when it’s my job to be an extrovert, I’m an extrovert. I do my job.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And that was it for me. I did my job.</p>
<h2 id="frustrating-and-loving" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Frustrating and loving</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Later, after reading Martin Seligman’s book, “Learned Helplessness,” I realized that it was my job as a parent not just to support our kids, but to frustrate them. The idea was to help them learn to deal with frustration so they wouldn’t grow up helpless. I did my job. I wrote about it <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2020/11/wrong-again-learned-helplessness-is-not.html">here</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Still later, after the kids became independent and sometimes behaved in ways that I intensely disliked and thought would harm them in the long run, I realize that part of my job was loving them, without regard to that behavior. I wrote a little about that <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2019/03/from-spark-to-post.html">here (“From Spark to Post”)</a>. </p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I take doing my job seriously.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I was raising my kids, I sometimes loved them because they were cute and loveable. But sometimes they were awful and unloveable. Still, I loved them. Because it was my job.<br />So I did my job and did not let my feelings about their behavior get in the way of loving them.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="will-the-insight-stick-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Will the insight stick?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So being happy is my job. Interesting insight. Will it stick?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This blog records other insights that I’ve had and decisions that I have made. Some have stuck. Others have dropped out of working memory. (Fortunately, my blog makes up for my memory failures.)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve had other insights not recorded here—though it might be useful for me to do that—and there’s a pattern to the ones that have stuck.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve written about this idea before:<br /><a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-stoic-challenge-doing-your-job.html">here (The Stoic Challenger)</a>.</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I learned that being a father and a husband were jobs that I had. What my kids did or what my wife did was not something I could control. What I could control is what I did, and not always that. But it was my job to do my best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> and here <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2017/06/do-your-job.html">(Do your job!)</a>, it hasn’t stuck yet.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think this is different.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It feels different. But I could be wrong.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We’ll see.</p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I have a friend who hates Trump. My friend is easily triggered by Trump, and after he’s ranted for a while, I start to get mad at him.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">My friend’s anger solves nothing. It wastes my time. It hurts my equanimity. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I feel compelled to either get mad at Trump—which solves nothing—or to defend Trump—which I don’t like doing, and which also solves nothing. So I get mad at my friend, which solves nothing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">And then then I get mad at everyone else who is making everyone else mad.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Fuck them!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Which solves nothing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">And makes things worse.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I can’t do anything about Trump. I can’t do anything about my friend. And I can do almost nothing about myself. And that pisses me off, too.</p>
<h2 id="almost-nothing-is-still-something" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Almost nothing is still something</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">“Almost nothing” is still something. But it takes so much time and so much effort to change myself. And the changes reverse themselves so fast. And that pisses me off. And that doesn’t help.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">And if I can’t do anything much about myself, who am I to criticize my friend for being what he is? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">And who am I to criticize Trump for being what he is?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Somewhere on the internet, I read this: “…remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, but that seems like good advice. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">There’s more than one beam in my eye, and they are so fucking hard to remove.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I know they can be removed. Years of meditation, therapy, Scientology, yadda yadda have taught me that I can remove them. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">When I put in enough work, I can get all the beams that are currently in my eyes out, along with the bad thoughts that are in my brain. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">When I do that, I discover the tranquility that was always there.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">My experience has taught me that everything that is my mind—even the bad shit—is there for a good purpose—or it was at one time. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;"> I have yet to find a truly bad impulse in myself.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Under anger, I’ve always found love.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Under fear, I’ve always found serenity.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Always.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I’ve spent a lot of time looking for bad shit, and when I find it and confront it, it always turns to good.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I am confident that with enough work, I can move from any bad place to The Good Place (I mean the real Good Place.)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">But has always been so much work to get from a bad place to a good place.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">And it never lasts.</p>
<h2 id="what-do-i-want-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What do I want?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I told this to Bobbi, and I said: “I know what I want. I want to get to that good place and live there always.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">“But,” I continued, “it seems like it would take a miracle for that to happen.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">And that’s when I realized: that’s what I want: a miracle. And that’s the miracle that I want.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">About a year ago <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-course-in-miracles.html">I wrote about a book I’d found called “A Course In Miracles.”</a> I’ve been reading it. Even took a swing at doing the course—but never really buckled down and got serious.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">But today, I realized that I might be able to get the miracle that I want if I did the work. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I want the miracle of my mind being whole and at peace and the miracle of my mind staying there, no matter what happens.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">I want that miracle for myself, and I want it for anyone else who would like that miracle.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">Including you, reader. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;">If that’s a miracle that you would like, I hope it will come to you.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px;"><br /></p>
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byA3MCBZZWFycyBPbGQuIFdURiEgYnkgRW1haWwmbHQ7L2EmZ3Q7PC9wPg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-38934439728927748482020-11-04T18:58:00.001-05:002020-11-04T18:58:07.477-05:00Wrong again, learned helplessness is not learned<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/3893443972892774848" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> I like knowing things. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Part of the process of knowing is discovering when something that knew is wrong. Oddly, I like it when I find that I’ve been wrong.</p>
<h2 id="learned-helplessness-is-wrong" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Learned helplessness is wrong</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve explained ‘learned helplessness” to a lot of people. If I’ve told you about it, and you believed it was correct, sorry. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Bobbi and I used this theory to raise our kids. The good news: even though we had the wrong theory, our practice was consistent with the correct theory. Yay.</p>
<h2 id="helplessness-is-not-learned-it-s-innate" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Helplessness is not learned. It’s innate</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The correct theory: helplessness is not learned. It is innate. We are helpless by default.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The opposites—initiative, empowerment, and causality—are what has to be learned. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Fortunately, to keep them from learning helplessness, we taught them resourcefulness. And boy, are they resourceful.</p>
<h2 id="martin-seligman-and-learned-helplessness" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Martin Seligman and learned helplessness</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I learned about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness">learned helplessness</a> from a book, oddly titled “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Learned-Helplessness-Theory-Personal-Control/dp/0195044673">Learned helplessness</a>,” by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman">Martin Seligman</a> around the time that Dana was a year or two old.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Learned helplessness is the idea that creatures—including kids—can be taught to respond passively to unpleasant situations. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> I’ve since read several other books by Seligman including “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/1400078393">Learned Optimism</a>,” “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Happiness-Psychology-Potential-Fulfillment/dp/0743222989">Authentic Happiness</a>.” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Change-Complete-Guide-Successful-Self-Improvement/dp/B0038TJ98O">What you can change and what you can’t.</a>“ All recommended.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Learned helplessness made a difference in the way we raised Dana and her sisters.</p>
<h2 id="seligman-s-experiments" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Seligman’s experiments</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s how one of Seligman’s experiments demonstrated learned helplessness:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A shuttle box is a piece of apparatus used in animal learning experiments. It is divided into two halves. In Seligman’s experiments, a dog is put in a shuttle box and given a shock. A normal, untrained dog, when given a shock, jumps to the other side. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seligman showed that dogs could be conditioned so that they don’t do that. Dogs that get shocks and have a way to stop the shocks jump in the shuttle box like normal dogs. But dogs that have no way to control the shocks behave differently. When they are later placed in a shuttle box and shocked, they lie down and take it. In Seligman’s formulation, the dogs had learned they are helpless.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seligman and others have shown that rats and humans can be conditioned similarly. Humans are not put in shuttle boxes, but they can be conditioned toward passivity. Humans who have learned that they are not in control in experimental situations behave in ways consistent with the helpless-seeming behavior of dogs and rats.</p>
<h2 id="learned-helplessness-and-kids" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Learned helplessness and kids</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seligman argued that kids raised with too strictly enforced rules or without rules could end up behaving as though they are helpless. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The kids raised with too consistently enforced rules learn that challenging rules is hopeless and learn to stop trying.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Kids raised with no rules never have an opportunity to learn to challenge the environment. So they end up helpless. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Raising our kids, we usually enforced the rules that we set, but we also let them disagree with us and argue with us. We never punished them for challenging us. We might still enforce the rules we had set, but sometimes we gave ground and negotiated a different rule. And sometimes we let them have their way.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We wanted them to learn that they could challenge any situation and were never helpless.</p>
<h2 id="the-correct-theory-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">The correct theory?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seligmans’ <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4920136/">new paper</a> is impressive. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It’s impressive that he went back and falsified the theory that initially brought him fame. And the techniques he and his coauthor used to support the new theory are also impressive.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">His original collaborator, <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/psych-neuro/steven-f-maier">Steven Maier</a>, switched fields and retrained as a neuroscientist. The paper traces the brain regions that are activated or inhibited during the conditioning and identifies the neural pathways built in the process. They provide a bottom-up explanation of dog, rat, and human behavior.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The bottom line:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The mechanism of learned helplessness is now very well-charted biologically and the original theory got it backwards. Passivity in response to shock is not learned. It is the default, unlearned response to prolonged aversive events and it is mediated by the serotonergic activity of the dorsal raphe nucleus, which in turn inhibits escape.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Right. I had always suspected that the dorsal raphe nucleus was involved.</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This passivity can be overcome by learning control, with the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex, which subserves the detection of control leading to the automatic inhibition of the dorsal raphe nucleus. So animals learn that they can control aversive events, but the passive failure to learn to escape is an unlearned reaction to prolonged aversive stimulation. In addition, alterations of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-dorsal raphe pathway can come to subserve the expectation of control.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Right! The good old mPFC inhibits the DRN. And the vmPFC gets in there as well.</p>
<h2 id="h-t-to-mark-manson" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">H/T to Mark Manson</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I found about this in <a href="https://markmanson.net/">Mark Manson’s</a> weekly newsletter, <a href="https://markmanson.net/newsletters">MINDF*CK MONDAYS,</a> to which I subscribe, and which I recommend along with most of what Mark writes.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think that Mark is one of the better philosophers philosophizing these days. Many people would argue that Mark shouldn’t be called a philosopher because real philosophers don’t say fuck as often as he does. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I judge someone a philosopher (or not) based on the quality of their thinking and their love of wisdom.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So anyone who doesn’t think he’s a philosopher should go fuck themselves. </p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p>
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bCZsdDsvYSZndDs8L3A+"></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-62913417895815811922020-10-19T12:33:00.004-04:002020-10-19T12:33:31.263-04:00You are never alone<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/6291341789581581192" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjygAIR4Lkh71CYdTrWWuWMRF_VQrRNn60uW0L4exGLLMAmvnvUMKHPCDBaBjb58SsBDw-VvzZy_21z92gN7od0veHmLLJz8DVAY1QEvMSFW4TtFU-jNy4tkQJiX-pqgMbHplurFAOzb8o/s1683/PXL_20201019_160431408.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="1683" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjygAIR4Lkh71CYdTrWWuWMRF_VQrRNn60uW0L4exGLLMAmvnvUMKHPCDBaBjb58SsBDw-VvzZy_21z92gN7od0veHmLLJz8DVAY1QEvMSFW4TtFU-jNy4tkQJiX-pqgMbHplurFAOzb8o/s320/PXL_20201019_160431408.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> “I don’t like working alone,” I said. It was just after midnight. I could not sleep. I was writing my <a href="https://750words.com/">750 words</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br />I corrected myself. “Sometimes I like working alone, but then the fun runs out. If I accomplish something cool, I have no one to share it with. If I get stuck, I have no one to help me. Working alone mostly sucks.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“It’s an illusion,” a voice said. “You are never alone.” I wondered whose voice it was. Then I decided it didn’t matter. I’d find out later. Or not. For now, I’d just keep writing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You’re never alone,” the voice continued. “I’m here now, and I can be here whenever you want me. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“And if I were not here, someone else would be with you. You are never alone—except as you decide you are alone. And not even then.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“What good would you be when I’m trying to solve a hard-core programming problem? Do you know anything about programming?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Do I need to?” Came the answer. “You know about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging">Rubber duck debugging.</a> Your rubber duck could help you if you’d ask it. You know that. Have you ever asked it?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The truth was, I hadn’t thought of asking it. I’d gotten the duck at <a href="https://legeneralhotel.com/">Le General Hotel Paris</a>, where I’d stayed on one of my business trips. I’d had it for a dozen years and never asked it once for help.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“No,” I admitted. “I’ve never asked it.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“If you asked, it would help you,” said the voice.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I would,” said the duck.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I may not know a lot about programming,” the voice continued, “but I’m better than a rubber duck. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I may use that as my motto,” the voice continued. “Better than a rubber duck.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Can I use that, too?” I asked.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Of course,” said the voice. “My works are <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">CC0</a>“</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Remember,” continued the voice. “Help abounds. It’s not just available from rubber ducks and not just for debugging. You are never alone, and you can always get help.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Thank you,” I said.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You are welcome,” said the voice. “Remember: this universe is full of beings who are willing to help. But like the rubber duck, you first need to ask.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“The most capable helpers are often busy, but many of them can control time and can literally make time for you.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“And of course,” the voice continued, “there’s God, who literally knows everything. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You can always call on God, and She will always help you.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I knew that. Or believed it. But based on my actions, I neither know it nor believe it. I wanted to believe it and didn’t want to test it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“God will help if you ask,” the voice said. “Sometimes, the help you need isn’t to be given the answer. Sometimes you need Her to tell you—lovingly—to figure it out yourself. Sometimes, you need a hint. Sometimes it’s enough to know that She is there.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Sometimes she’s in a rubber duck,” said the rubber duck.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“True,” said the voice.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“So abandon the idea that you are alone. Embrace the truth: help abounds. Knowledge abounds. Wisdom abounds. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. You’ve read that, haven’t you?” The voice asked.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I have,” I said.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Well, here’s the part that didn’t make it. ‘Sit on your ass and try to solve it all yourself, and you’ll experience endless and needless frustration and loneliness.’</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I thought about it for a while. Help abounds. And I could be a helper as well as a helpee.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’d learned some things that I could share with others. If I did, I could earn the right to ask for help.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You already have the right,” said the voice. “You are alive. You are Life. That’s all the right you need. If you want to share your gifts with others, that’s another thing. But there’s nothing that you need to do to ask for help. People like to help. You like to help.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It was true. Whenever anyone asked me for help—even strangers—I helped. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. If some homeless guy on the street asked for help, I’d likely pass them by. Maybe that’s not the right policy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Maybe it’s not,” said the voice. “And maybe it is. Either decision might be right if you make it. The wrong decision is letting the decision be made for you. Who is making that decision then?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I don’t know,” I said.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Make no decisions alone,” said the voice. “Remember that.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I will,” I said.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Now get to work,” said the voice. “You can finish the rest of your 750 later.”</p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /> <a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p>
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L2EmZ3Q7PC9wPg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-42641832901681356222020-08-05T13:43:00.002-04:002020-08-05T13:43:51.579-04:00Bucket list<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/4264183290168135622" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><img alt="Rakotzbrucke" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhu333Q26D-eCYHsALJzCGQr0bQbfVmPE62VM0oqN0MznHbIyduHAH8F1UzJXpyUpeWz96d_0c-IQ4DU4U48mfbshP92idldJpEAWzfc0Y-lhkZYGu1Kf-DO-sTrDlyjgg1s_PjdD_pMc/s1920/RokotzBrucke.jpg" style="width: 100%;" /></p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">After I die, you kids will each get a small bucket with my ashes and you need to take me here and all the other places I will pick out. It’s my bucket list.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I wrote that in “The Borg channel,” our family’s hangouts chat channel.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Here” was the the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azalea_and_Rhododendron_Park_Kromlau">Rakotzbrücke in the Azalea and Rhododendron Park Kromlau in Gablenz, Germany</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I will do that daddy,” Mira replied in the channel.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Of course, she would do it. And she’d speak up because, like me, she’s not afraid of death. Death is ten years away from me, maybe twenty, but it’s coming. I am not afraid. We are not afraid. When it happens, we’ll face it together.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This is the woman who grew from the girl who told me that she believed that “grandpa’s come back as a squirrel.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I go back to bed, and I think: “After I’m gone, I’ll come back and watch over you.” (And your sisters, of course, I add as I edit this)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And suddenly I can feel my mother watching over me. And my Dad. But prominently my Mom, the dominant force in my life growing up. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I can feel her. She’s as deep and as dark and as cold as the river that flows beneath the Rakotzbrücke. Nothing bad about deep or dark or cold. That’s just the image that arrives.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think, “I forgive you, mommy,” and I burst into tears.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Bobbi, lying next to me, stirs, and sleepily asks me what’s happening. I turn and put my arms around her, and between sobs, do my best to explain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’d been reading “A Course in Miracles,” and thinking a lot about the healing power of forgiveness and the harm of resentment. I’ve heard this more than once: “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” I’d drunk enough poison for one life, had my fill of resentment, a lot directed toward my Past Self, and plenty for my Mom. <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2017/07/thank-you-past-me-thank-you-random.html">One day I woke up</a> and transformed my resentment toward my Past Self to gratitude. Later I replaced my resentment toward my mother with gratitude, too.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But the tears were evidence that burdens remained.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I could feel that my mother was at peace. In her final years, as her memory declined, everything in her that wasn’t loving dissolved. “Every day is a blessing,” she’d say. And it was. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But apparently, I had unfinished business with her, and the tears continued to flow. She did not need forgiveness, but I needed to forgive her—and accept hers.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I did.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I was in a liminal space. I’d learned that word from Bobbi while she studied for her degree in mythology. A liminal space is a place between—a threshold.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I was in between worlds. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’d been reading “The Snow Child,” a book that Bobbi had recommended. Each time I picked it up and started to read, the book took me to another world. Jack and Mabel; Faena, the snow child; Esther and George and Garrett. I’d only just met them, but I cared deeply for them all. I was moved to tears by their joys and their sorrows. Maybe I loved them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then there’s the world of “The Bairn,” the series of books Bobbi had written. She’s been back working on the next book in the series. Yesterday I’d skimmed her last book, amazed to know someone who could produce that, dancing through the universe that she’d created. She’d brought that universe from within herself, as she had brought forth our three babies, now grown women.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In the world of “The Bairn,” I got to know and care about Dani, Ryan, Monya, Mischka, and all the other people that she’d brought to life. Giving her feedback and editing the final version of each book, I’d visited that world again and again.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We all have universes within us, I thought.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Our lives are stories that are unfolding before us, I thought. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m happy to be in the story I’m in, I thought, filled with gratitude as I lay, tangled in Bobbi’s arms, sobbing and explaining.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I tell Bobbi, and she understands. Of course. My best and constant friend, my wife for nearly fifty years, my partner and love and lover for longer and still, who has helped me become who I am today.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“You did it yourself,” she tells me, whenever I say that.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I didn’t do it alone,” I answer. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This morning, I misquote Jack Nicholson from “As Good As It Gets.” “You made me a better man.” But that’s not what he said, I discover later. “You make me want to be a better man,” he told Helen Hunt.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I didn’t need Bobbi to want to be a better man, but I needed her help to become better, and didn’t always welcome the help. She didn’t put up with my bullshit, which made her hard to live with—not that I was easy. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">She insisted that I become the man that I aspired to be.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The other day we were talking about our friend Roscoe. His wife, Midge, had died, and—to no one’s surprise—Roscoe had found a new lady, married her, and was off having adventures that he shared on Facebook.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I wouldn’t do that,” I told her, and I didn’t just mean the Facebook part.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There was a time when I had imagined what my life would have been like if she’d died. I’d make the best of a bad situation, of course. I imagined that I’d move to Boston because I like cities and she hates them. Maybe I’d meet someone. Maybe I’d have been like Roscoe. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then things changed and changed again. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“I have no interest in another relationship,” I told her yesterday. “I’m completely satisfied with this one. If you died, I have better things to do with my time than to try to replace what we’ve built.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">She doesn’t believe me, but I’m sure. We’ve built a universe together, and I can visit it whenever I want, just as I can visit the universe of “The Snow Child” or “The Bairn Trilogy.” I don’t even have to close my eyes to stand where I stood the first moment I saw her. Or see the way she looked in her black turtleneck, hair spread across the pillow as we lay in bed in Chilling Street Cottage after she returned to England to live with me. I can return to countless other places and times, including this very morning. What else do I need?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I forgave my mother, who needed no forgiveness from me. But I did it because I needed to do it. I think about my brother and my sister, and forgive myself for being the shitty brother I’ve been, and forgive them for anything that I can forgive.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I lie in bed, in Bobbi’s arms, my crying ended, at peace—at least for now.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m grateful for this moment. Grateful to be alive. Grateful to forgive and to be forgiven.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And right now, grateful for the inspiration that led me to have written this.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a> </p>
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LiBXVEYhIGJ5IEVtYWlsJmx0Oy9hJmd0OzwvZGl2Pg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-34025879489872915112020-07-30T21:50:00.000-04:002020-07-30T21:50:19.409-04:00There but for fortune, go I<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/3402587948987291511" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> Many people believe that if they lived in Germany in the 1940s, they wouldn’t have been Nazis. They would have bravely stood against Hitler, and protected Europe’s Jews. Out of 80 million Germans (Germany and Austria), a few thousand were resistance fighters. A few hundred have been recognized for saving the lives of Jews. To be one of them, you’d need to be better than more than 99.999% of your peers. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In how many other respects do you think you’re that much better?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You’d have a better chance of having been against slavery in the South in the 1800s, but your odds would still be slim. There were some Southern abolitionists, but they were few. There were thousands of soldiers from the South who joined the Union Army, but most of them served to preserve the Union, for which their ancestors had fought, and not an endorsement of abolition.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This thought arose when I read this excellent post, <a href="http://paulgraham.com/conformism.html">The Four Quadrants of Conformism</a> by Paul Graham, and <a href="https://www.boredpanda.com/student-question-abolitionism-twitter-robert-george/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic">this article</a> found by my sometime research partner, Daniel.</p>
<h2 id="average-is-average" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Average is average</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The average person is average. Of course, we vary from the people around us. We’re not clones. But only exceptional people differ in extraordinary ways.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m above average by some measures, below average by others. But on average, I’m average. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe that my IQ and the span of my knowledge—in certain domains—are well above average. In a typical field, I’m average. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">To the degree that I’m exceptional, I’m exceptional, just like everyone else. For example, everything that is real for me appears in <em>my</em> consciousness. Only mine. Extraordinary. Just like for you.</p>
<h2 id="your-community-might-be-different" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Your community might be different</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you accept the premise that we’re mostly average and that you’re more likely (in general) to go along with your community, then consider this:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you had born into a conservative community, rather than the liberal community that you’d been born into, you’d be the same human being that you are today but with roughly opposite opinions. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you had born into a liberal community, rather than the conservative community that you’d been born into, you’d be the same human being that you are today, but with roughly opposite opinions. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You’d see the arguments of the people in the community you’d been born into as mostly correct. You’d have differences of opinion, of course, but on the whole, you’d agree. When you saw some of their arguments as wrong, you’d likely see them as understandably wrong.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You’d see the arguments of the people in the community that you had not been born into as mostly incorrect. You might agree with them from time to time, of course, but on the whole, you’d disagree. When you saw some of their arguments as wrong, you’d see them as indefensibly wrong.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You might get angry at the people in the group you were not born into for the harm that you saw them doing. But if you had been born among those people, you’d see what they were doing as good, and you’d see your current group as the one doing harm.</p>
<h2 id="born-biased" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Born biased</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We’re all born biased, and we’re all born with brains that work hard to confirm our biases. Our brains do that even after we’ve learned about confirmation bias.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">With careful attention, some of us manage to reconsider some of our opinions and change our minds. Then we congratulate ourselves on a job well done.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But our congratulations are probably premature.</p>
<h2 id="my-history" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">My history</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I was born into a liberal family in a liberal community. I grew up with liberals. I could not understand how conservatives could hold the opinions that they held and still be rational and decent people. I met people who seemed rational and trustworthy, who loved their kids, did their jobs, and didn’t torture dumb animals. Then I’d hear some of the ideas that they espoused, and I’d have second thoughts about their rationality and decency.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How could anyone believe that?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It took a while for me to learn to appreciate—not simply reject—ideas that were different from mine. I learned to appreciate ideas—not just from political conservatives—but others whose coordinate systems were dramatically different than my own. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It took longer to realize that if I had been born among those people, those alien ideas would have been mine.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now I see things this way:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Any idea that that’s consistent with my upbringing is suspect. If it’s survived scrutiny, so far, I still think it’s got validity. But I know it might be wrong. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How can I tell if the reason that I find that an idea that’s compatible with my upbringing is likely to be correct? It could be that I was taught that wrong idea, and have not yet seen the error. Or it could be that the idea is correct.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I don’t know, and I can’t know.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That thought is humbling.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Any idea that I have that I’ve adopted, even though it’s inconsistent with my upbringing, is also suspect, but less so. To embrace such an idea, I have already paid the price: I broke my conditioning and went against the group that taught me what was right. Still, it could be wrong.</p>
<h2 id="shapiro-and-me" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Shapiro and me</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I disagree with Ben Shapiro on many things, but I learned this from him: he said that he determines the facts of a matter by reading conservative viewpoints and liberal viewpoints on the subject. What they agree on is fact. What they disagree on is opinion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s a pretty good rule, and I credit Shapiro for passing it on to me. I’m not convinced that Shapiro is careful to follow that rule. He seems to assert many “facts” with which I, as a liberal, disagree. Or perhaps he is not stating them as facts, just not labeling them as opinions.</p>
<h2 id="fundamental-error" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Fundamental error</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think that it’s a fundamental error to blame other people for having wrong beliefs. There might be exceptions, but the rule seems a good one.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I think it’s an error to blame yourself for not seeing earlier that a belief that you had been taught was incorrect. There might be exceptions here, but I find them hard to imagine.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">People do the best that they can to have correct beliefs because that’s what their communities teach them. What communities teach people to hold onto incorrect beliefs?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some communities do teach people not to question the beliefs held by the people in those communities. But that’s because those communities hold that it’s correct not to question their beliefs. Why would they teach something that they did not believe was true?</p>
<h2 id="there-but-for-fortune" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">There but for fortune</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I see people behaving in ways that seem to me to be outright wrong, I used to condemn them for their obvious error.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now I’m more likely to respond with compassion.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There, but for fortune, go I.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There, but for the grace of God, if there is a God, go I.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There, but for an accident of birth, go I.</p>
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LWJveDsiPiZndDs8L3NwYW4+PC9zcGFuPjwvZGl2Pg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-40921632369859624992020-07-30T21:33:00.000-04:002020-07-30T21:33:58.954-04:00Consciousness, Redux<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/4092163236985962499"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s a summary of some of the things I have learned through meditation practice and through listening to skilled practitioners and reading what they’ve written.</p>
<ol style="margin: 1.2em 0px; padding-left: 2em;">
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">Consciousness is the only thing of which I can be certain. (Thank you, Sam Harris!).</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">I am not entirely sure of what consciousness is. No one seems to be. But I know it when I see it. In me, because that’s the only place where I experience it.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">Awareness is different than consciousness. When I am not asleep, I am not conscious of most of what is around me. But I am aware of some things of which I am not conscious.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">Attention is different than awareness and consciousness</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">The Mind Illuminated proposes that both awareness and attention are aspects of consciousness. The goal of meditation is to find an optimum balance.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">I am usually not conscious of consciousness, aware of being aware, or paying attention to what I am paying attention to.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">In a guided meditation, I am directed to become conscious of consciousness, objects in consciousness, awareness, and attention. When I am invited to become more mindful or aware or attentive, I tend to become so.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">One of the attributes of consciousness I have become acutely aware of this: objects arise consciousness, and they pass away. Both happen effortlessly and cannot be prevented other than, I suppose, by being rendered unconscious.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">Another: I can partly control attention and awareness, but attention also moves without my bidding, and awareness changes without my direction.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">I don’t control what specific thought or experience arises, but I can influence what sorts of thoughts or experiences are likely to arise.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">I am conscious of “objects in consciousness” more often than I am conscious of consciousness itself.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">The “sense of self” is just one more “object in consciousness.”</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">When I am conscious of consciousness, all that exists for me (in that moment) is only what is in the “field of consciousness.”</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">To the degree that I can say that I am certain of something, that certainty ought to be grounded in consciousness. Often it is not.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">. I am sometimes conscious of the contents of a dream and yet not conscious of the fact that I am dreaming. I am sometimes conscious of both.</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">What arises in consciousness is always an illusion. It cannot be otherwise. But I am rarely aware that I am seeing an illusion.</li>
</ol>
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bj48L2Rpdj4="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-73728087471424382602020-07-30T21:22:00.000-04:002020-07-30T21:22:06.023-04:00Equanimity is in the depths<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/7372808747142438260" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><h2 id="a-thought-came-to-me-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">A thought came to me.</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Yesterday, a thought came to me, and it was a shitty thought.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Thoughts come to me from time to time. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Ideas. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Notions. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Perhaps they come to you the same way.</p>
<h2 id="how-they-come" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How they come</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I might be sitting with “nothing on my mind,” and a thought comes to me. It could be about anything.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I might have my attention on a problem, and a thought about how to solve that problem comes to me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Sometimes a useful thought comes. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Sometimes a useless thought comes.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Sometimes nothing comes.</p>
<h2 id="how-i-write" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">How I write</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Often I sit in front of my keyboard, perhaps to do my 750 words, and have no idea what I am going to write about. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Thoughts about what to write come to me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I accept one of those thoughts and turn my attention to it, my fingers start typing. The words and ideas that elaborate the thought come to me. This is the thought process and the process of writing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Perhaps I sit in front of my keyboard, with a topic in mind. Thoughts about that topic come.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Like now.</p>
<h2 id="encouraging-thoughts" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Encouraging thoughts</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Sometimes I do things that seem to encourage some kinds of thoughts. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It seems to me that I do the things that encourage certain kinds of thoughts, but it does not seem to me that I make any specific thoughts appear. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">They seem to arise by themselves.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I ask myself a question, thoughts that answer the question arise. If I turn my attention in some direction, thoughts appropriate to that direction arise. I can prepare the field of consciousness in which thoughts arise. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But I don’t decide which thoughts arise.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The thoughts that arise might be the result of seeds that I planted some time before. But in the moment, the ideas come to me. The thoughts arise. I don’t do anything.</p>
<h2 id="yesterday-s-shitty-thought" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Yesterday’s shitty thought</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">As I said at the top of this essay, the thought that came to me yesterday was a shitty thought. It was an angry, annoyed, resentful thought. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I haven’t had thoughts like that in a while, so I was unprepared. For the last several weeks, my mind has been tranquil. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Not yesterday.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Other shitty thoughts followed the first one, including metashitty thoughts about the fact that my mind was being filled with shitty thoughts and metashitty thoughts about how shitty I was for not being able to get rid of them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then a memory arose: the first shitty thoughts had begun to appear the previous night, after many days of pleasant thoughts, tranquil thoughts, equanimous thoughts. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’d had a day filled with frustrations. The code that I was working on didn’t work for mysterious reasons that seemed to go away only after I’d rebooted my computer. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then it didn’t work for mysterious reasons that turned out to be a stupid mistake on my part. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then my smartwatch disconnected itself from my phone and reinstalling and rebooting didn’t help. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then some other shitty little first world problem.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">By bedtime, agitation had replaced equanimity. I struggled to get to sleep, and finally, with the help of some chemicals, I got to sleep.</p>
<h2 id="next-morning-more-shit" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Next morning, more shit</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In the morning, I woke up. I briefly looked forward to the day. Then more shitty thoughts arose. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I got crankier and crankier. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I tried to get rid of the shitty thoughts, but more appeared. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The disaster cascaded,</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But finally realized this:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Thoughts arise. They appear. They go away,</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I couldn’t control what thoughts arose. I might influence what thoughts arose, but I didn’t have control.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So what could I do?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I didn’t know.</p>
<h2 id="a-thought-ecology" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">A thought ecology</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I tried to think ecologically: thoughts seem to arise in an environment that’s prepared for them. Once a thought arises, then like any life form, it may change the environment so that it’s hospitable for other, similar entities. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Perhaps a tranquil environment will attract tranquil thoughts, and an agitated environment invites agitation. A shitty environment invites shitty thoughts.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So what to do when too many shitty thoughts arise?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">One thought was to mobilize an “army of tranquility.” But tranquility does not join armies. There can be no army of tranquility. Agitation and anxiety can join forces, but bringing in the tranquility reserve is not going to work.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Instead, I thought that the answer was something like this: to recognize that unlike agitation, which comes and goes, that equanimity is always there.</p>
<h2 id="equanimity-is-in-the-depths" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Equanimity is in the depths</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Agitation is on the surface.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Equanimity is in the depths. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Why this might be true is uncertain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"> Nor was it true that it is certain.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But those are the thoughts that arose.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Slowly the surface calmed. The storm blew by.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And tranquility reappeared.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a> </p>
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cnMgT2xkLiBXVEYhIGJ5IEVtYWlsJmx0Oy9hJmd0OzwvZGl2PjwvZGl2Pg=="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-83970541294127256662020-07-29T14:31:00.001-04:002020-07-29T14:31:27.698-04:00On resumes--stupid and not<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/8397054129412725666" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m pretty good at writing and reviewing resumes, and when someone points a friend in my direction, I give them pretty much the same speech. So to save us all time, here’s what I say:</p>
<h2 id="the-speech" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">The speech</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I was a hiring manager, I thought that most of the resumes that came across my desk were stupid.</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><strong>Objective</strong><br />I’m looking for a challenging job working with a high-performing team where I can leverage my skills to make an impact and advance my career as a …whatever</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Great. That will make you stand out from the other resumes I get. The ones that say stuff like:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m looking for an easy job working with a bunch of slackers, a job for which I am entirely unqualified, and that will cause no discernable results and retard my career as…whatever</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What? I don’t get that kind of resume? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What do the other resumes look like? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Exactly the same as yours. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Full of buzzwords.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Challenging. High performing. Leverage. Impact. Advance. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Zzzzz</p>
<h2 id="differentiate" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Differentiate</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You’ve got to differentiate. Your resume won’t help you if it sounds like everyone else’s. It won’t help me understand who you are if it’s full of stupid cliches—unless you are a stupid cliche. In that case, perfect.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But no one is a cliche. We’ve all got unique strengths. Your resume is an advertisement. It’s a sales pitch for you. And it’s got to include what they call in the marketing biz, your “Unique Selling Proposition.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Your USP is what makes you different from everyone else who’s looking for that same job.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A typical resume starts with an objective. Here’s where you say what you are looking for.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seriously? As a hiring manager, I know what you’re looking for. And I don’t care that much. I know you are looking for a job. My job. That’s what you want. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I don’t care about what you want. I care about what I want. And what I want is to know: “Why should I hire you?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Scratch that. What I want to know first is: why should I even bother talking to you.</p>
<h2 id="elevator-pitch" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Elevator pitch</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When you’re in sales, you develop an Elevator Pitch for your product. It’s in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_pitch">Wikipedia:</a> “…a short description of an idea, product or company that explains the concept in a way such that any listener can understand it in a short period of time.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So your resume should start with your elevator pitch for you.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I was looking for a job in technical sales, say, I might write something like this:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Executives, managers, and software engineers speak different languages. I speak those languages fluently. I’ve used those skills to close multi-million-dollar software and services sales. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve succeeded by understanding the objectives of decision-makers in each group, helping them see how <strong>what I sold</strong> will meet their needs, and by translating the needs of the other groups, so they understand one another better. That’s let me establish relationships of trust that have helped develop business after the initial sale.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Think that’s better than “A challenging job leveraging….zzzzz?”I think so.</p>
<h2 id="adapatation" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Adapatation</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But as good as that is, I would never send that out. Instead, I’d adapt it for a particular company. Like this:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Executives, managers, and software engineers speak different languages. I speak those languages fluently. I’ve used those skills to close multi-million-dollar software and services sales, and I can use them to sell <strong>Acme Widgets and Services</strong></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve succeeded by understanding the objectives of decision-makers in each group, helping them see how products and services like the ones that <strong>Acme</strong> sells will meet their needs, and by translating the needs of the other groups, so they understand one another better. That’s let me establish relationships of trust that have helped develop business after the initial sale.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Of course, I wouldn’t put the bolded parts in bold. That’s just to highlight the changes I would make. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I’d probably tweak more depending on how I viewed the situation.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Why?</p>
<h2 id="a-hiring-decision-is-a-big-sale" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">A hiring decision is a big sale</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Suppose, to make the math easy, you’re going to make $50,000 a year. I know you make more but follow the math and multiply to get your actual deal size.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">With benefits, taxes, and overhead, you’re going to cost most companies about 2x your salary. So $100,000. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Say they expect you’ll be there for five years before moving on.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s a half-million-dollar sale.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I’ve created sales collateral for a half-million-dollar deals (and I have), I start with the best content I can find and adapt it for that deal. I would never pull a wrinkled flyer that I’d written for some other deal out of my bag and expect it to do anything but get me disqualified. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">As it should.</p>
<h2 id="customize-customize-customize" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Customize, customize, customize</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Even for a $50,000 sale, I’d work to customize it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Your resume is a piece of collateral that speaks for you and speaks to the job (sales) opportunity that you’re facing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The summary at the top of your resume is usually the second most important bit of collateral that you’ll use. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The first most important is a cover letter, customized for that opportunity, and the person to whom you are sending it. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">My rule for cover letters is the same: use it to help you stand out from the crowd. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Avoid cliches like the plague.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Copy pasting a good summary from your resume isn’t a bad idea if you don’t have a better one. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The goal of the cover letter, after all, is to get them to read the resume. The goal of the resume is to get them to talk to you.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Telling them in the cover letter that you’re applying for the job as <strong>whatever</strong> that they’ve posted on their website is usually dumb. Do you think they can’t figure that out if you don’t tell them? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Maybe you’re sending it to the HR department, and you want to make clear what job you have in mind. Sending stuff to the HR department is another category of dumb. Find the hiring manager and send it to them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Hard to find the hiring manager? You’re making a half-million-dollar sale. Do a little work!</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Telling them that you’ve enclosed (or attached) a resume likewise. Do you think they won’t find it if you don’t tell them?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Tell them something that improves the odds that they’ll read your resume.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“Tom Brown, your classmate at Brown and a friend of mine gave me your name and said that he thought we should talk.” </p>
<h2 id="final-thoughts" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Final thoughts</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There’s more to writing a resume than just crafting the summary. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Choose the highlights in your job history for impact and pick the ones that will help you land the job you’re after.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">One last point. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Proofread, and spell check and grammar check and then have someone who you know is careful, read your cover letter, and resume. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">One stupid error in a resume tells me that however bright you might think you are, you’re an idiot.</p>
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<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The forum is invitation only. It’s a small group of people self-selected for intelligence and rationality. In two days, there were 26 responses, some snarky, a few thoughtful. A couple edged up to questioning the question itself.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Is Portland crazy?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Portland is a city of 650,000. On-the-ground reports say that 3,000 to 6,500 people typically march, sing, chant, and speechify—peacefully. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Less than much smaller number—1% according to most estimates—engage in acts that might be judged crazy.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So there might be some crazy people. But is Portland crazy?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s a city with 99% of its people going about their business, and about 1% not. About 0.01% are doing what amounts to poking a powerful animal in the tail with a stick to see what happens. You might call it crazy. You might call it foolhardy. They likely call themselves “brave.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But the rest? I</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Is it crazy to show up, walk around and chant for a few hours? Hard to see that it is.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Another person in the forum asks:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So, being situated in Scandinavialand, I’m a bit perplexed with the whole Portland situation. What do the rioters want with that courthouse and why are there police/soldiers (or what ever they are) holed up inside it</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I couldn’t answer that question without understanding what the writer means by “the rioters.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">He might be referring to the people who would describe themselves as “protestors” or “demonstrators.” </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Or to that tiny minority engaged in provocation or vandalism—most of whom are unlikely to self-describe as rioters.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">He might be following this kind of reasoning:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When an authoritative source declares that an assembly, formed for protesting, is a riot, all the protestors stop being protestors and become rioters. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seems odd to me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What do “they,” whoever “they are,” want? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here again, we run into a bad question. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The who are there want different things. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There might be subgroups who want similar things.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you wanted to know what the protestors want, they want to protest. Some want to protest against police brutality. Some want to protest the presence of the Feds. Some are protesting the perceived indifference to the problems black people experience.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If there were rioters there, I could guess that they’re there to riot.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">These are well-intentioned questions, but not particularly good ones.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Can I think of a better question?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Richard Feynman says, “I’d rather have questions I can’t answer, than answers I can’t question.”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So here’s a question that I’m asking myself:</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How could I—far away from Portland—make things better?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I don’t have an answer yet, but I have some ideas.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Stay tuned.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a> </p>
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bj48L3NwYW4+PC9kaXY+"></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-46313759454852024152020-07-27T22:18:00.000-04:002020-07-27T22:18:19.647-04:00Masochism and misbehavior<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/4631375945485202415" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We know masochism exists. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Some masochists are driven to physically painful experiences. Some are driven to psychologically painful experiences.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Masochists don’t smile and laugh as they experience pain or degradation. They seem as troubled as anyone. Yet they keep coming back for more, </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Why?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Short of brain damage, how can a person become—and remain—a masochist?</p>
<h2 id="to-a-neuron-reinforcement-is-reward-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">To a neuron, reinforcement is reward,</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We know that a person’s behavior is the result of both conscious and unconscious drives. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">For a neural subsystem, ‘reward’ is simply ‘reinforcement.’ ‘Pleasurable feelings’ are a conscious experience. Reward by reinforcement is an unconscious phenomenon.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We could imagine “constructing a masochist” by rewiring a brain. We’d need to build an unconscious module that drove the organism toward painful experiences. We’d wire the pain sensors to that module so that pain would reinforce that behavior. We’d leave everything else alone. The pain sensors would be connected to the modules that produce avoidance behavior. And they’d be connected to the modules that produce the feelings of pain. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We would have constructed a creature that consciously feels pain, strives to avoid it, and yet unconsciously is driven toward that which it wants to avoid.</p>
<h2 id="normal-alignment" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Normal alignment</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Usually, ‘reinforcement,’ ‘reward,’ and ‘pleasure’ are aligned. But they don’t have to be. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Neurons don’t care about pleasure or pain, reward, or penalty. The only thing that matters is reinforcement.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Neuron firing is values-neutral. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A person can become a masochist if unconscious drivers of behavior that lead to pain are more potent than the conscious drivers that avoid it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">For a masochist, pain still hurts. But the brains of masochists still drives them to painful experiences, because reinforcement, not “reward,” is what drives behavior.</p>
<h2 id="adult-misbehavior" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Adult misbehavior</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Adults misbehave.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We do things that we know that we don’t want to do and that we know that we will regret the next day. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In extreme cases, the behavior is disruptive and dysfunctional—like drinking or drug-taking. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In the usual case, it’s mild: we spend more time than on social media than we want, or we eat things that we’ve decided that we don’t want to eat.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Adult misbehavior is driven by the same mechanism that drives the behavior of masochists: reinforcement of neural structures that are decoupled from consciousness.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The drive doesn’t have to be not legible or intelligible. In the end, it’s a bunch of neurons that can influence behavior and that have been trained to push behavior in a particular direction. Plus, another bunch of neurons that reinforce the behavior.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How does it happen?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Every life history is different. The mechanism is common, but the ways in which it can become activated are varied. When the issues are large enough, people seek therapy. When they are small, we learn to live with our deficiencies.</p>
<h2 id="misbehaving-children" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Misbehaving children</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This theory explains the misbehavior of children.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It says that if a child is misbehaving, there are neural structures in that child’s brain that are driving that behavior. The neural structures are being reinforced by the consequences of that behavior.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Parents are confused. They’re doing everything that they can to discourage the behavior. The substantial cost of their disapproval should be enough to offset the small pleasure a child might get from its misbehavior.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And yet the behavior persists.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Remember, to a neural structure, reinforcement is reward.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If the child’s brain has gotten wired so that the parent’s disapproval reinforces the misbehavior, the child’s behavior will persist. The more disapproval, the more reinforcement.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How could that happen?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Every history is different. It’s hard to know. But if the behavior persists, there must be something reinforcing it.The challenge is discovering what it is and finding a way to avoid reinforcing.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a> </p>
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dDs8L2Rpdj4="></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-68321149886904968212020-07-26T20:18:00.001-04:002020-12-27T21:59:19.980-05:00ADYB: Always Doing Your Best<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/6832114988690496821" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I was growing up, the people around me told me that I was not doing my best. My mom, the major force in my life as a child, told me that a lot.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">She not only told me that I was not doing my best, she told me why I was not doing my best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">She told me I was lazy. I was selfish. Defiant. Ungrateful. That I did not care. Or I did not try hard enough. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I came to believe those things.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I have no doubt that my mom and the other people who told me those things loved me. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I have no doubt that they believed that they were telling me that for my own good. (They told me that, too)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I told shit like that to my kids, also for their own good. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’d like to believe I did less harm to them than my mom did to me. She did me a lot of good, but also harm. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But who knows. I believe she was doing her best, as I did.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">(Sorry, kids, I know better now.)</p>
<h2 id="what-i-now-believe" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What I now believe</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I now believe that I am always doing my best. Right now.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe I have always done my best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe that my kids always did their best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe everyone does their best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Of course, “the best” does not mean “the best possible.” It means “the best, subject to the constraints of reality and your .”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s what I believe everyone does.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">All the time.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe no one can do anything other than their best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I hope to bring you to understand that it’s true.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I hope to bring you to believe that realizing it is true will make a difference.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I hope to bring you to understand why we came to believe what we did and that it’s harmful, and how to be free of those harms.</p>
<h2 id="does-it-matter-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Does it matter?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Let me start by describing the difference between the two approaches: the Always Doing Your Best (ADYB) approach and the Not Doing Your Best (NDYB) approach.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Imagine that you’ve been convinced that ADYB is true, and someone is doing their best. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Imagine that you’d still like them to do better. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">(The fact that someone is doing their best now doesn’t mean that they can’t do better in the future)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What can you do that will help?</p>
<h3 id="anger-and-punishment-will-help" style="font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Anger and punishment will help</h3>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Seriously. They sometimes will cause someone to do better. You’ve seen it. You’ve probably lived it. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This is part of why we’re convinced it’s effective.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Anger and threats of punishment work for a different reason than you might think and have costs you might not consider.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Remember, under the ADYB assumption, they were doing their best before you got mad. The best that they could under the circumstances of reality at that time.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So how did they do better?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The answer is: you’ve changed the circumstances. Before, their best might have been meeting their own goals—whatever they were. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now their best includes avoiding your anger or your threatened punishment. So they trade satisfaction of their own goals against the threat.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It works, sometimes. But nothing comes for free.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I sometimes did better when my Mom threatened me or got angry at me. Or when teachers, or bosses, or customers did.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I sometimes did better when I threatened or got angry at myself.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I did do better, but not always. But always there were costs. Depending on the situation, the costs included one or more of these, in greater or smaller amounts: frustration, shame, depression, bitterness, anger, hostility.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I did the best that I could do to avoid anger and threatened punishment—not to do the best job I could.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve used that approach with others—notably my kids. They’ve undoubtedly benefitted, as I did, and undoubtedly paid a similar price. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And as the active agent, I paid the price, making those threats and making good on them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m sorry for not knowing better, but like my parents, I was doing my best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve gotten over the harms I’ve experienced, but it took time, and there was a cost to do that. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Better not to have paid the cost of the process and the cost of repair.</p>
<h3 id="removing-constraints-will-help" style="font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Removing constraints will help</h3>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Uner the ADYB assumption, people do their subject to constraints and other conditions of the environment.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you want them to do better, you change the constraints or other conditions.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Ignorance is a constraint that’s often easy to change.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Little kids do stupid things despite ADYB because they don’t know better. So we teach them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When they appear to be defiant, under ADYB, it’s because they don’t understand something. So we teach them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When grown-ups appear to not do their best, it’s usually due to a lack of knowledge. So we teach them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But what?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You first must determine what they don’t know, or misunderstand, or are unaware of. Then you provide them with the knowledge that will remedy their lack. Then, when they do their best, they will do better.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Someone’s lack of knowledge might be immediately obvious, or it might take some inquiry. If it’s not obvious, then you lack knowledge, and you need to remedy that.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It might be easy to teach someone what they don’t know, or it might be difficult. (Or you might be teaching them the wrong thing)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If it’s difficult, the ADYB framework says that you are doing your best to teach them (given your own constraints), and they are doing their best to learn (given theirs.) </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So if things are going poorly, more inquiry—with the recognition that you are both doing your best—will ultimately get to the root of the problem and lead to success.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s the theory.</p>
<h3 id="the-difference-between-the-two-approaches" style="font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">The difference between the two approaches</h3>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Both work. In both cases, you’re trying to help someone. The reason that you are angry or making threats is to help.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If you’re trying to help someone, you’ll do your best to learn what they need and then teach them what you’ve learned.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A person can teach and learn even if they are upset, frustrated, angry. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But there’s ample evidence that in most cases, teaching and learning go faster in the presence of patience, calm and caring.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Not always. Navy SEAL training would probably not be as effective with patience, calm, and caring. But that’s the exception.</p>
<h3 id="fallback" style="font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Fallback</h3>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You don’t need to believe the ADYB theory to consider these two approaches: anger and upset versus patience and calm.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Anger and upset work—sometimes. The costs—outside of SEAL training and the like—are resentment, fear, and hostility.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Patience and calm also work. The costs—in general—are only time. It takes less time to threaten someone to do better (when it works) than to patiently find out what they need to learn and then teach them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So consider: even if you don’t believe the ADYB model is correct, you might help someone do their best if you behaved as though you believed they were already doing their best.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ll explain why we are convinced that people are not always doing their best and why NDYB seems obviously true in a follow-up post.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In the meantime, why not act as if ADYB is true?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><br /></p>
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ZWFycyBPbGQuIFdURiEgYnkgRW1haWwmbHQ7L2EmZ3Q7PC9kaXY+PGRpdj48YnI+PC9kaXY+"></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-57809111468386405862020-07-26T16:31:00.002-04:002020-07-26T16:31:36.736-04:00Down the rabbit hole<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/5780911146838640586" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Is anyone interested in taking a trip down a rabbit hole with me?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The journey started with a paper by physicist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vaidman">Lev Vaidman</a> called <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s_5kiMrXpyR3lme-vSrplvpXEnaGCOasTQu21IdD3Vo/edit?usp=sharing">All is Ψ</a>.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">It started before that, but never mind. I’m going through the paper making notes. If you want edit access, let me know.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now, here’s the story.</p>
<h2 id="from-acim-to-all-is-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">From ACIM to All is Ψ</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I was reading <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-course-in-miracles.html">A Course in Miracles (ACIM)</a> with its grand, metaphorical visions of the universe, God, and humanity. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The thought arose: “I wonder if there’s anything written about the Universal Wave Function that would help me understand and communicate these ideas?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">(Where did that thought come from? We’ll get back to that later.)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Anyhow.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I knew that the Universal Wave Function was tied to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett_III">Hugh Everett’s</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation">Many-worlds interpretation (MWI)</a> of quantum physics.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I Googled for papers and found a paper by Vaidman. I remembered (correctly, it turns out) that Vaidman had invented something that I remembered (incorrectly) as the Vaidman bomb detector. It’s actually called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitzur%E2%80%93Vaidman_bomb_tester">Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester</a>. (I do seem to be losing it.)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The bomb tester was originally a thought experiment for a device that you could use to determine whether a bomb with a one-photon-trigger would explode when hit with a photon, or would be a dud. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">How do you run such a test? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Vaidman figured it out.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The good news: the device would never give you a false positive. If it said a bomb was a dud, it would be a dud. The bad news: the design would trigger half the bombs, yield no result for a quarter, but it would tell you, correctly, that the remaining quarter were live bombs. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The theory was confirmed experimentally. Improved versions were designed and tested. The current designs give no false positives, correctly detect close to 100% of all live bombs and explode almost none of them.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Think about that for a minute. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">You have a bomb that goes off if a single photon hits it. You want to see if it’s a live bomb without triggering it. How the hell do you do that?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Answer: quantum weirdness and human genius.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I knew Lev Vaidman was a genius and expected his paper on the Universal Wave Function was worth reading.</p>
<h2 id="understanding-the-paper" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Understanding the paper</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I pulled a copy of the paper, turned it into a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s_5kiMrXpyR3lme-vSrplvpXEnaGCOasTQu21IdD3Vo/edit">Google Doc</a>, and started reading. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Vaidman starts:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I believe the quantum state is a reality. It is the reality. The only fundamental physical ontology is the quantum wave function.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">“The only fundamental physical ontology” translates to “The only fundamental thing that actually exists.” A bold claim, but Mikey likes it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Later:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I will present the view that all that exists is the wave function of the Universe, which evolves according to the Schrödinger equation and without collapses during quantum measurements.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">This is the fundamental premise of Everett’s Many World’s Interpretation.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Then:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The theory postulates that the only ontology is this Wave Function, which evolves in a unitary way…</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Evolves in a unitary way?</p>
<h2 id="down-the-rabbit-hole" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Down the rabbit hole</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So I go to find out what “evolves in a unitary way” means. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">To do that I need to understand <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_transformation_(quantum_mechanics">Unitary transformation (quantum_mechanics)</a>) and to do that I have to understand the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_(quantum_mechanics">Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics)</a>) and to do that I have to understand <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamiltonian_mechanics">Hamiltonian mechanics</a> and to do that I need to understand this sentence:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left: 4px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); color: #777777; margin: 1.2em 0px; padding: 0px 1em; quotes: none;">
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A Hamiltonian system may be understood as a fiber bundle E over time R, with the fibers Et, t ∈ R, being the position space. The Lagrangian is thus a function on the jet bundle J over E; taking the fiberwise Legendre transform of the Lagrangian produces a function on the dual bundle over time whose fiber at t is the cotangent space T∗Et, which comes equipped with a natural symplectic form, and this latter function is the Hamiltonian. The correspondence between Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics is achieved with the tautological one-form.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Right?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But I really want to understand Vaidman’s paper, because I want to understand the Universal Wave Function.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Why?</p>
<h2 id="theory-of-the-uwf" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Theory of the UWF</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">In case I die before I finish this research, here’s a sketch of where I am going.</p>
<ol style="margin: 1.2em 0px; padding-left: 2em;">
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Suppose that Vaidman is right, and reality <em>is</em> the wave function.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Since the UWF is all that is real, the UFW contains all the energy and all the matter there will be or has ever been.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">One of the fundamental ideas (well tested) of physics is that information cannot be destroyed. Even when information gets sucked into a black hole, it can’t be destroyed.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So the UWF contains all the information that has ever been or ever will be.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Since knowledge is a kind of information, the UWF also includes all the knowledge there has ever been or has ever will be. (Knowledge can exist without a knower)</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If the universe <em>is</em> a mathematical object, as described by Max Tegmark in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Mathematical_Universe">“Our Mathematical Universe”</a> (not just described by mathematics, but a mathematical object) that object can be self-referential. It is not possible for an ordinary physical object to be genuinely self-referential. The internal model must be less precise than the outer model. But it is possible for a mathematical system to refer to itself with full fidelity.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So the knowledge contained within the UWF is complete knowledge of the internal self-reference. Is that the same as saying the UWF has knowledge of itself? It might be. Is that the same as saying the UWF knows itself? It might be. Is that the same as saying the UWF is conscious? It might be.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If the UWF is conscious, then the UWF is also omnipotent and omniscient. It’s a pretty good approximation of the idea of God. Not God as defined by holy scripture, but God as implied by quantum physics.</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If this is true, would the UWF “want” anything? Does a bacterium want to move? Does a bird want to feed its young? Does a ball want to roll downhill? They do those things. But do they want to? Does “wanting to” matter?</p>
</li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px !important; margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The behavioral implications of that idea are very much in line with those of A Course in Miracles.</p>
</li>
</ol>
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PC9kaXY+PGRpdj48YnI+PC9kaXY+"></div></div>Mike Wolfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11791939960831860259noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-809323243837962619.post-80628279004160634572020-07-25T14:46:00.004-04:002020-07-25T15:01:51.546-04:00What I do, I teach<div class="markdown-here-wrapper" data-md-url="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/809323243837962619/8062827900416063457" markdown-here-wrapper-content-modified="true"><p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What I do, I teach</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A while ago I wrote about making (<a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-request-for-micacles.html">a request for miracles</a> and discovering <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-course-in-miracles.html">A course in miracles</a></p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I started reading the coursebook and doing the lessons—one lesson a day for 365 days. Then I got distracted, at about lesson 10.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Recently I went back to it and started reading it more regularly and thoughtfully. I plan to restart the course soon. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But I’ve learned some worthwhile lessons from it already.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here are two:</p>
<ul style="margin: 1.2em 0px; padding-left: 2em;">
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">What we teach, we learn </li>
<li style="margin: 0.5em 0px;">What we do, we teach.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="what-we-teach-we-learn" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What we teach, we learn</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’ve known that for a while. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The old school rule for medical training: see one, do one, teach one.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">There’s no better way to learn something than to teach it to others.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That’s part of why I write. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">By putting something that I’ve learned (or half-learned) in a teachable format, I force myself to clarify my understanding and eliminate my misunderstandings so that I share knowledge, not ignorance.</p>
<h2 id="what-we-do-we-teach" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What we do we, teach</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The second is obvious, but I’ve never thought about it the way that the book reminds me.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Humans are hard-wired to mimic the people around them. It’s one of the two ways that babies learn. One is reward and punishment (the environment punishes, even if parents don’t.) The other is imitation. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We know this happens both on the neurological level and behavioral level.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Humans understand the emotional states of others by unconscious mimicry. We copy the facial expressions we see and then read our body language. If the process is interrupted by drugs or paralysis or otherwise, ability drops measurably.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So everyone, all the time, intentionally or unintentionally, is teaching everyone around them by what they do. </p>
<h2 id="what-do-i-teach-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What do I teach?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">That prompts me to ask: “Who am I teaching? What am I teaching? What do I want to teach?”</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Alone in my house, as I am right now, I’m only teaching Future Me. Whatever I do, I teach myself.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">A while ago, I wrote one of my favorite posts, <a href="https://70yearsoldwtf.blogspot.com/2017/07/thank-you-past-me-thank-you-random.html">Thank you random stranger</a> in which I explained how I’d revised my attitude toward my past and future selves.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I decided to be grateful for what Past Me had given me instead of resentful; for what I hadn’t been given. (Thank you, again, Past Me). And I decided to improve what I’d been given and pay it forward.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But the idea that “What I do, I teach” tells me that I can do more than that.</p>
<h2 id="what-do-i-want-to-teach-future-me-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What do I want to teach Future Me?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Here’s an example.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">On my kitchen counter, I have a sheet of paper with my task list. I’ve been making progress on the list, but there are some tasks that I put off day after day.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Because I’m a procrastinator.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I have been accepting that explanation. And I’ve been accepting that behavior. Accepting it is better than beating myself up for it—which I’ve done from time to time. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But with new knowledge, I can do better. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I’m have been willing to do procrastination. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Now that I know I’ve been teaching it, I’m not willing to keep teaching it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And I don’t want to keep learning it. </p>
<h2 id="what-do-we-teach-ourselves-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What do we teach ourselves?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We are always teaching ourselves. It’s called reinforcement. Every time we perform a behavior that we’ve learned, we strengthen the neural connections for that behavior. We are teaching ourselves to do that same thing, more skillfully, with less effort.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Sometimes procrastination is rationally a good idea. Some problems go away by themselves. But most of the things I procrastinate doing will not go away.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So I’d like to teach myself to get those things done and not procrastinate. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I know that’s what I’d like to learn.</p>
<h2 id="why-did-i-start-" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">Why did I start?</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So why did I start to procrastinate? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And why haven’t I stopped?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The answer to why I started must be this: I was taught to procrastinate, and when if I inadvertently procrastinated, I was rewarded. So I started.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And then I taught myself to procrastinate more often by practicing procrastination and being rewarded. I got good at it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What I do, I teach.## Why haven’t I stopped?</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">If I don’t like procrastination (at least sometimes), why haven’t I stopped? </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I do a task that I’ve put off repeatedly, I may be relieved when I finally do it and get it done, but there’s little joy in it. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Most often, I start because someone or something has forced me. It may have been circumstances, or some nagging other, or my nagging self. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But in every case, I am forced. And I don’t like it.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Whatever else I might feel when I overcome procrastination, my feelings also include resentment.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">When I am the one who changes my behavior, I’m at war with myself. One part of me is sick and tired of procrastination, and sick and tired of the parts of me that are procrastinating.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">But other parts have been well-rewarded for procrastinating, want to keep doing it and resent being forced to stop.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The part of my mind that makes me stop procrastinating uses force, and guilt, and hostility to overcome the other part.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">The other part responds with resentment. </p>
<h2 id="what-i-do-to-overcome-procrastination-i-teach" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What I do to overcome procrastination I teach</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What I do, I teach.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I have overcome moments of procrastination with force, and guilt, and hostility, and to respond with resentment.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">And that’s what I’ve taught myself to do next time.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Fuck all of that. (And the NYTs, besides)</p>
<h2 id="what-i-intend-to-teach" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">What I intend to teach</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I want to teach Future Me to have a better life than the one that Past Me passed on to me. </p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">I want to teach Present Me, as well.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">So instead of forcing myself NOT to do something that I’ve learned to do (and done well and been successful at doing), I intend to teach myself to do what I would aspire to learn.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Bobbi and I think that our kids are better than we were, and we believe that’s because we taught them the best that we knew (and hid our worst teachings, when we could.)</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We did not just tell them what was right, we modeled the behavior for them. What we did, we taught.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">We both were hard-working—and taught them to be hard working. And at least one of us (hint: not me) taught them to be organized and not procrastinate. And they learned.</p>
<h2 id="tl-dr" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; margin: 1.3em 0px 1em; padding: 0px;">TL;DR</h2>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What I do, I teach</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">What I teach, I learn.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;">Let’s see what I do with that, and what I learn.</p>
<p style="margin: 1.2em 0px !important;"><a href="https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=70YearsOldWtf&loc=en_US">Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email</a></p>
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