How Not To Scream Into the Void

I recently responded to a comment thread on a Facebook repost of a video about how a lot of things we really like in the United States have their underpinnings in Socialism. Putting aside whether we agree with its contents, I responded to a comment interaction that I saw.

A friend of the poster replied to the effect of "you should see Cuba... it's a wreck". And the poster said that she was not interested in debate. Rather she merely wanted to "point out the irony". And this is what sets me into motion because I thought her reply was also ironic.

Debate vs. Discussion

We only repost a video like this in order to provoke a response in the viewer. Ideally, we also want to start or advance an honest discussion about values and taboos. Now there is a huge difference between debate and discussion so let's draw the line between between them.

I recently heard "debate" described as a situation where two people present their ideas and, no matter what facts are presented, neither party will change their mind because a debate has a winner and a loser and to change your mind is to lose. Most debates, especially public ones, are about moving an audience, not the debaters.

A discussion, on the other hand, is not primarily concerned with whether an audience is swayed. The intention is connection or learning or entertainment. The participants in the discussion generally start by asking a question or listening with some curiosity. Because of the difference in the starting point and the intention, a discussion has the potential to be a rich exchange.

Back to Sharing to Provoke

Facebook is a good forum for sharing a video like this, which admonishes a person to challenge his or her own ideas about socialism. But I would admonish the people who share but don't want to debate to consider what we invite by "sharing to provoke".

I'm going to say something controversial here: Sharing a video in order to provoke a response is the first act of a debate.

Now we may honestly not want to engage in a back-and-forth debate, I mean, who would want that? It's exhausting. But if that's the case, isn't it also true that we only to hear our side of the debate? That doesn't seem intellectually honest or friendly.

Shouting into the Void

What kind of world would it be if we only ever shout our one-sided arguments into the void of social media?

It's hard to do discussions on Facebook at all, let alone well. I'm guilty as hell everytime I smack the share button without typing anything. I don't say what I found interesting and why. Time is short. Blah blah blah.

But I like to think I make up for it by my willingness to expand on my reasons for sharing after-the-fact and by attempting to draw out an interesting thought or perspective from friends whom respond in disagreement. This is how I attempt to turn useless debate into rich discussion.

Sometimes it works too.

Things That Annoy Me, Episode #1478: "Check Your Privilege"

I’m annoyed by nearly every movement which names “awareness” as its motive.

I’m annoyed by “check your privilege” even though I like the idea of living consciously.

When I try to imagine the person that came up with “Check your privilege” I see a white college student that hasn’t had a serious struggle in his/her life who found the perfect blank check to be instantly smarter than everyone else. What better way than moral oneupsmanship?

But I have no problem whatsoever with privilege. It has no inherent problems in a free society. My father got my family the hell out of starvation and persecution by a communist regime in Vietnam. This was a gift like no other.

I thank my “lucky” stars that I was born in this country and I would not rather have been born in Vietnam. “Privilege” is the outcome when parents succeed at giving their kids better circumstances than they had. The motive is noble.

So some kids grow up as “comfy kids” because they didn’t have to experience severe poverty growing up. I am a “comfy kid”. The challenge of creating a life that is personally meaningful is not easier for the “comfy kids”. “Character” is forged in the crucible of our life’s struggles.

In this sense, the “check your privilege” campaign has a seed of truth. It can be hard for the “comfy kid” to understand the opportunity that he/she has when viewed from the perspective of any of our archetypes of poverty: the homeless man, the working single mother, the citizen of a war torn country.

The broader culture seems to agree that it’s a tragic waste to squander a position of privilege. “Think of the good you could do” we are admonished.

• White people are in the best position to change the system for blacks.
• Men are in the best position to change the system for women.
• America is in the best position to make a difference for any poorer country.

Because we don’t want to waste privilege, we sometimes act without fully understanding whether our actions will make a difference. Is doing something always better than inaction? I don’t think so.

Whatever we do, we have to live our lives actively and consciously and work to discover/choose our unique purpose, which we can work at tirelessly. This an enormous challenge with defies prescription but I believe it to be the surest way toward a better world.

We talk about fixing the system as if it’s one system but the prescriptive solutions seem to imply an understanding that there isn’t one system to fix. This make sense. Human systems, whether villages or corporations, are generally implemented as a haphazard collection tribes, each of which agree on a way of doing things toward a common goal.

There isn’t one system and we can’t simply modify a few lines of source code to make it better.

The prescriptions I have seen seem to agree that mindfulness and self-examination are the solution. But they also note the challenges because our biases become hard to see when they get baked into the fast parts of our brains.

So as a way of closing, I’d like to document my own prescription. Slow down.

One of the gifts of privilege is that we can afford to act with less urgency. We have resources and more time to get it right.

What if we committed to using the slower and more rational parts of our brains? What biases could we overcome by cold-hearted rational decision-making? This is a question that Paul Bloom seems to have taken up. It’s interesting to consider.

The world seems to be speeding up rather than slowing down and I wouldn’t mind if we took a step back to consider. Are we being driven by FOMO, the fear of missing out? Do we need to say “no” to more things? Do we need to meditate more?

I'm annoyed by “Check your privilege” because it's structured as an angst-provoking statement rather than a thought-provoking question. But I don’t fundamentally disagree that is worth considering how best to use a bit of leverage we may have that others may not.

I'd rather ask and answer this: “What would you do to improve human existence (starting with your own) if you could cash in your privilege and buy time with it?”

That's effectively what privilege amounts to for most of us: More time. And that's not a bad thing.

Dear White People Friends and Black People Friends

Does my addressing you as #blackpeople or #whitepeople start a conversation in a way that makes you feel welcomed by this and open to discussion? Do you wonder if I will give you a fair shake? Do you care?  Or does it inspire only enough curiosity to see how I will over-generalize, misperceive, slander you?  

I want to know how it makes you feel because I have this idea that racism is hard to write about in a way that doesn’t upset the people you’re trying to communicate with.

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Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley from Flickr (Creative Commons)

I am troubled by recent writing which wants desperately to change the way things are but includes language choices that will turn people off.  The writing is littered with “black people” and “white people” and what they need to start doing or stop doing.  And I keep thinking as I read that they could achieve so much more if they were more solution-oriented.

Liz has helped me through multiple rewritings of this document and while we were walking this morning she observed that not all of the writers are interested in solutions.  She’s right.  Some are out to build themselves up.  Some are opportunistically taking a moment to attack white people because they sense they have a moral trump card.

I’m not interested to help the cause of anyone being a dick because they think they can get away with it.  In fact, that’s part of why I feel moved to write about this topic at all.

By sharing my words and ideas, I hope that the ones that are more focused on change than blame can find safe harbor.

I am neither white, nor black. Maybe this means I have less of a stake in this discussion but it also means that I can keep perspective.  

“Racist”: A Loaded Word.

John Metta reposted a sermon he delivered to a mostly-white audience at his church as a blog post, "I, Racist".  He shares a tale of an incident involving his white aunt’s sensitivities one that poignantly illustrates why he can’t talk to white people about racism:

White people do not think in terms of we. White people have the privilege to interact with the social and political structures of our society as individuals…

What they are affected by are attacks on their own character. To my aunt, the suggestion that “people in The North are racist” is an attack on her as a racist. She is unable to differentiate her participation within a racist system (upwardly mobile, not racially profiled, able to move to White suburbs, etc.) from an accusation that she, individually, is a racist. Without being able to make that differentiation, White people in general decide to vigorously defend their own personal non-racism, or point out that it doesn't exist because they don't see it.

The result of this is an incessantly repeating argument where a Black person says “Racism still exists. It is real,” and a white person argues “You're wrong, I'm not racist at all. I don't even see any racism.” My aunt’s immediate response is not “that is wrong, we should do better.” No, her response is self-protection: “That’s not my fault, I didn't do anything. You are wrong.”

The only thing I think is clearly illustrated by this story is how loaded the word racist is and how much harm is done to the possibility of discussion because they use the term without care.

• “People in the North are racist”.  

• Metta and family refer to his aunt’s “participation in a racist system”.

The words “racism” and “racist” are verbal battering rams with real emotional impact.  When we are confronted with a person describing aggregates of people resembling ourselves as “racist”, the words come across as blaming rebukes.

Racism is something we are all brought up to understand as an unspeakable evil.  The human tendency to defend our individual moral standing is so strong, I can’t blame a person for becoming enmeshed in a nonproductive and defensive discussion if they feel accused of racism.

Metta has no sympathy for this and I think I understand why.  Consider that he declares it character flaw on her part that she takes it personally rather than taking personal responsibility for racist outcomes.  

Blaming beliefs leave no room in the heart for sympathy.

Underlying Metta’s prescription that his aunt ought to have said, “that is wrong, we should do better,” is a blaming belief:  

Every single white person is responsible for black suffering. White people have NEVER taken responsibility for the situation. They all need to accept the blame so that we can get on with the conversation about what they owe us to fix it.

Metta can’t see it, but he is being a complete ass toward his “favorite aunt”.  I think the blaming belief is why.

If he didn’t give himself an option to stop talking about it, he could find a way to invite her to look at it from his individual perspective, which focuses on the grim systemic outcomes.  He’d gently explain to her that these are hard for white people to see.  

And he’d do it because he loves her like she’s his favorite.  

He says, she’s his favorite, but his actions say something else.

“White Feelings”: A Victim’s Privilege to Be Insolent

Let’s talk about “Black Lives” and “White Feelings”.  

The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings…

...This is the country we live in. Millions of Black lives are valued less than a single White person’s hurt feelings.

This a current trend:  Authors and tweeters are loudly telling the world they can no longer remain silent out of “concern for #whitefeelings”.  “#Blacklives > #Whitefeelings” says a number of tweeters.  

(They do not say whose choice it was to become silent in the first place.)

I’m not white but I can smell a not-so-subtle and opportunistic attack all the same.  “White feelings” strikes me as an elaborate way to insult white people. If someone told me I owed them help and they made it clear they don't give a damn about my “Asian feelings” I would find a polite way to tell them where they can stick their expectations and their cheap insults.

The victim mindset is the foundation for the resentful insolence of publicly declaring your disregard for “white feelings”.  The victim mindset’s primary mode and ultimate purpose is blame.  The goal is not understanding.  It has no concern for different perspectives or context.  It doesn’t care that there is more than one party in the conversation.

The victim mindset justifies hurtful actions by the victim so long as the target is the object of their blame: their “oppressors”.  

I don’t think action toward fundamental change will start from blame.  It will start from agreement, which can only be achieved through empathy and understanding.

Communication can only begin by abandoning the victim mindset.

Slow Down Before You Grind To A Halt

Practice Empathy by Quinn Dombrowski - Flickr (Creative Commons)

I want to tell the authors and tweeters talking about “White feelings” and calling people “racists” to slow down a bit and think about what they are saying.  They risk making the only potential allies for their cause so defensive that the discussion grinds to a halt.  

In addition to a huge attitude change, we need better way to think and communicate about the hard things. Can we apply personal relationship communication techniques to talking about racism?  So much of what is said about racism violates basic principles for talking about things that hurt:

• Don’t start with blame or use attacking language
• All-or-nothing words (e.g. always/never) usually indicate bad thinking
• Beware of unspoken expectations and judgments
• Ask yourself if you’re being fully rational
• Make sure you agree on fundamental definitions

If these guidelines help us to have discussions about sticky topics in personal relationships, how could they transform the way we take on a charged topic such as racism?  

Time to Get Honest

In my relationships I have gotten myself hooked by disputes where I got so focused on who was right and who was wrong, I wasn’t listening or coming up with a plan of action.  Inevitably, the pain lasts about as long as my focus was misplaced.  

We need to pause and get honest about our motivations.  

• Do we want to get the “northern white liberal” to finally accept his/her guilt? Or do we want to create radical change in the systemic outcomes?  

• Are we out to damage the dignity of anyone who is white, or are we out to do our part to ensure dignity for all?

• Are we more interested in “being right”, or are we more interested in making things right?

• Do we want to spend our time blaming, or do we want to get to work?

If the goal is to change a system going horribly wrong, then we need a collaborative model.  

Contrary to what Metta says, ALL people are capable of thinking in terms of WE.  But we think in terms of WE best when we can agree on a well-defined goal, meaning that the conditions for success are itemized and attainable.  It also helps if it is clear how each individual can contribute toward the goal immediately.

With that in mind, I have a declaration of my own that I propose as a necessary starting point:

• We are not interested in who is responsible for things being the way they are so long as we agree they need to be changed.
• We are not interested in being right, and proving others wrong.
• We are interested only in correcting systemic patterns that result in injustice.

We have to move past blame.  Blame is corrosive to collaboration. So is insult.  White people, especially the young ones, don’t deserve blame for the way things are.  As far as I can tell, they just got here and calling them racist doesn’t help anyone become more “aware” and it doesn’t win more allies for the cause.

My declaration is a commitment to stop fucking around and get serious about what we can do. My declaration is about priorities.  Whatever it is we think other people may owe us, however we think they benefit from oppressing us, I believe that these are not productive conversations to have.  These points are debatable and do not need to be settled before we can work toward making things better.

Hurt feelings are an enormous distraction that we don't have time for.  And hurt feelings or anger are both appropriate responses to spiteful, abusive bullshit.

Winning Requires Evangelists

If this conversation is important enough to be had right now… if #BlackLivesMatter to you, then it’s time to get clean on attitudes and the way we communicate by climbing the ladder of clean communication.  We don’t just want allies...

We want EVANGELISTS.  Evangelists are people who actively apply their best efforts and ideas toward a vision of a beautiful world.  They also believe in the vision so much that they go about inspiring and recruiting others to the cause.

We can’t win evangelists through guilt or shame.  These things make a person feel smaller, not bigger.  Small people achieve small things.

One final observation.

Guilt and shame and outrage were not the primary motivators in: “I have a dream…”

"I have a dream…” gave us a vision that won evangelists from all cultures. It wasn't a message of blame, it was a vision of interracial harmony that can only be built with a spirit of collaboration.  

(Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley, Photo Credit: Quinn Dombrowski)

The Magic of Action

This morning I finished chapter 10 from the Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. This is the chapter on Action and it’s a great reminder for lessons I have learned here and there in my life but I’m not consistent about. I started reading this morning in the section about using “mechanical” means to get yourself flowing.

Do this today: Pick the one thing you like to do lease. Then, without letting yourself deliberate or dread the task, do it.

I'm not a huge fan of doing laundry.  The times when I am most effective about doing laundry also coincide with those times when I am resisting action on something that feels more dreadful than laundry. I don’t think that the laundry becomes more pleasant to do. It’s just more pleasant than starting on my truly dreadful task. And once started, it becomes easy. Resistance melts away in the light of action.

When I wanted to start working out for the first time in my life, I told myself that I should not make any excuses. Step 1: get my clothes on. Step 2: get my body in the gym and my feet onto a machine. The rest would take care of itself. And it did. 

The lesson of this section, and indeed some of my own life experiences is that action is the best way to get ready for action.

Use a pencil and paper. A simple five-cent pencil is the greatest concentration tool money can buy… The mind is not designed to think one thought and write another at the same time… When you write on paper you write on your mind too.

You’re stranded on a desert island and you can only take one thing with you. What would you take? A pencil and paper. This is usually my answer because I do believe that it would solve nearly every other problem.

What problems cannot be improved or removed with clear thinking?

Remember, thinking in terms of now gets things accomplished. But thinking in terms of someday or sometime usually means failure… Tell yourself, “I’m in condition right now to begin. I can’t gain a thing by putting it off. I’ll use the ‘get ready’ time to get going instead.”

This is very Tony Robbins-esque. Tie pain to certain choices to make them less likely. Associate pleasure to the ones that help you to make them more likely.

What is ultimate pain?

Failure.

What do we associate with ultimate pain?

Someday. Sometime. Never.

How can we avoid it?

Act Now.

Not get started because we wanted conditions to be perfect and inspiration to be high is definitely the best way I can think to ensure failure. In fact, I haven’t written that much over the past month because I have spent too much time waiting for something. But I think I’m done waiting. I think I’m going to let myself write badly and that will be okay as long as it’s honest. And I’m going to do it because getting going is more important than some senseless idea that if I can’t start “on fire” I should just wait until conditions are better.

Conditions will if I start now. 

Squarespace Tip: Hiding The Datestamp on a Post

If you're interested to hide the datestamp on a post, it seems like you have to dive into your Design settings and add some Custom CSS.  I use the Avenue theme and I found a post that describes how to do it via code injection.  I modified it so I could just add it to Custom CSS.

.date {display: none}

Incidentally 'date' is also the class name that I found when I did an Inspect Element in my browser.  So if you're not using Avenue, you might be able to adapt this so that the class matches the class of the datestamp element for another template.

I'm an Engineer for a living and I always recommend that people "look under the hood" to get a better understanding of what is going on and what you might be able to get away with.  It's a character-building practice in life.

Being Lost, But Most Definitely Looking Closely

It seems that whenever I point myself in a relatively new and unpracticed direction I must inevitably hit a point where the distance seems to great to cover and I can't seem to imagine how I will get to my intended destination, let alone to the next place where I can set down my pack for a while and have a look at the map.

I am struggling greatly with knowing what to say. This may be a direct consequence of trying to write more.

I believe that admitting this will help in some way. In the least it may help me to lay down impossible expectations of myself: most of all that I would not experience feeling more than a little lost and uncertain which way to point my feet for the next phase of my journey.

I am supposed to believe my success is inevitable. That's what successful people do right? I’m to focus on that and it’ll make the sense of feeling lost melt away, leaving only the possibility of the determined action of a visionary. (Settle down, Francis.)

Here is my comfort: I have been listening to the audiobook version of The Three Marriages. And sometimes the right words at the right time can be quite energizing. Here are some of the words of David Whyte on the benefit of being lost:

…for those that are lost, their life depends on paying real attention. If you think you know where you are, you stop looking.

…that feeling far away is a normal human experience and that feeling far away from our own life and our own work can be an essential part of its very discovery. Feeling far away is to be examined and understood rather than disliked and dismissed.

… to look at the particular way we feel distant and to see it as a very particular way of looking at the world that no one else possesses and that bestows very precise insights.

When I read this, I find it much easier to substitute for “inevitability of success” a faith in perseverance, which has more humility than hubris, I can more readily connect my current struggle with the early emotional stages of my past successes.

I have a goal to write more. It looks something like this: I’d like to share an examination of the power of ideas to influence our emotional states and make impossible distances feel possible… make courage easier to summon… make connect practice with purpose… (Hmmmm… For this last bit, we might need a montage. Even Rocky had a montage.)

(Photo Credit: Paul Bica on Flickr)

Amor Fati

Last night I listened to an episode of Tim Ferriss podcast where he shares a chapter of the audiobook by Ryan Holliday: The Obstacle is the Way.  I've lost the episode and I can neither find it on my phone or my computer.  That's fine... gives me more motivation to jot this down.

In this chapter, Holliday opened with a story of how there was a night where Thomas Edison’s factory had caught on fire.  And due to the unusual chemicals, there was no way the fire department could do anything but let it burn to the ground.  Edison looked for his son, so the story goes, and said to him, “go and get your mother.  You’re never going to see a fire like this again in your life!”

Holliday takes away from that a sense of having been impressed with Edison.  Edison had gone beyond merely avoiding getting upset when tragedy struck.  He found a way to enjoy it.  Amor fati!  Love your fate, says Holliday.

I find it admirable as well.  I believe that when I don’t stop to ask why something happened to me, that I am much calmer and much happier.  And I like that Holliday is challenging the reader to take that to this next level of appreciating whatever it is that happens.  If I appreciate my tragedies, there is nearly nothing to be unhappy about and much to celebrate.

A question that comes up for me is whether I need my sense of discontent to be motivated to act to improve situations that would normally be stressful.  

My Notes to a Friend Who is Bored at His Job

What follows is a recap of what I recently told a friend over lunch when I found out that he was bored at work.

What Not To Do: Don't Numb Yourself At Work

Put away the smartphone. Log out of Facebook.  Pay attention.  Work is most of your life.

There are 168 hours each week.  You're awake for about 112 hours and you work/commute about half of that time.  Numbing yourself is not an option.  You need your wits about you.

Leave

My first advice to you is to leave. Find yourself some interesting work. Doesn't have to be with a different company though that can be fine too.  

You’ve been there about three years and it’s about time you moved to a new position that will challenge you to grow personally.

Try to see what kinds of doors are open to you based on the confluence of experience and opportunity that is your current situation and take a chance on it. If you can plug into something spiritually significant to you, go for it. If not, aim for personal development.

Stay and Be Your Best Self

And if there are reasons that you can’t leave and you need to hang around where you are, then stop doing things exactly the way you’ve been doing them. I don’t mean to get lazy on the job. You’re not Atlas and you’re not shrugging.

I mean that there are probably opportunities to design better ways to do the sorts of things that you have been doing. To make yourself more effective or to make this less prone to error. You can design checklists and systems that streamline the work and reduce the possibility that a step will be missed or a mistake will not be caught.

If you like to write software, you can implement the system in software. If not, you can implement it as process. Either way, if you are bored it’s because you’re not putting development energy into the way you are doing your job.

The more you can chip away at the things that are not urgent but are very important, the more you will love your work.

I can rarely think of any job I have been in where I have been bored and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

How to Exercise When You Don't Have Time

My high school friend, Peter, is a very busy parent and attorney.  And very recently, we were talking about ways that we could get more exercise.  Now, I didn’t decide to go the parenthood route like he did so I can use all of the time that my kids would be demanding my attention to do things like writing this blog post and getting a minimally acceptable level of exercise.  

And I can imagine up silly answer to questions like this:  

How does a person who thinks he has no time to get to the gym manage to get more exercise?

Normally when I try to brainstorm these sorts of things, I end up with a list and most of the things I come up with are obvious or not too helpful.  One idea was so interesting though, that I have started using it each morning.  It came from a thought: what if you could use that time you are catching your breath between sets.  And what if you don't like getting dressed in gym clothes to work out?  

As with many of my brilliant ideas, the ones born of laziness are the most amusing and the most useful.  So it was that I gave birth to a workout designed to be done at home in any clothes and also doesn't require that you shower more than once a day.  This works by interleaving the preparation for your shower into your workout.

Here’s what I imagine:

• Workout Set I:
  • 50 jumping jacks and 30-40 air squats
  • Gather your clothes and put them in the bathroom
• Workout Set II:
  • 20-30 Pushups
  • Brush your teeth
• Workout Set III:
  • 20-30 Chair Dips
  • Shave
• Workout Set IV:
  • 7-10 Pullups
  • 30 steam engine
  • Shower
• Final Set:
  • 3 Sun Salutations

The sets can be just about anything and all you have to do is lengthen your shower routine a bit.  I have tested this out for a few weeks now and, even though Liz laughs at me when she hears me doing my jumping jacks, I love that I still have time for everything else I want to do.  Like writing blog posts.

Give it a try!  And see if it adds nicely to what you’re already doing to keep yourself in good shape.  Let me know how it works out for you on twitter @francisluong.

(photo credit)

Quote: Dennett on Jumping Out of the System

This describes many of the debates that linger in politics and economics as well. Generally there is a flawed fundamental premise that is not being examined.

When you are confronting a scientific or philosophical problem, the system you need to jump out of is so typically entrenched that it is as invisible as the air you breathe. As a general rule, when a long-standing controversy seems to be getting nowhere, with both “sides” stubbornly insisting they are right, as often as not the trouble is that there is something they both agree on that is just no so. Both sides consider it so obvious in fact that it goes without saying. Finding these invisible problem-prisoners is not an easy task…
…sometimes a problem gets started when somebody way back when said, “Suppose, for the sake of argument that,…” and folks agreed, for the sake of argument, and then in the subsequent parry and thrust everybody forgot how the problem started! I think that occasionally, at least in my field of philosophy, the opponents are enjoying the tussle so much that neither side wants to risk extinguishing the whole exercise by examining the enabling premises.

From Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.

photo credit

The Expandable Heart

I joined my ex-wife, Suzanne, this Tuesday to see a cat we had adopted some 15 years ago, beloved E-Bear, put to sleep. Sent off to heaven. We love you little buddy.

There were valid health reasons for doing this but still I feel sad. I did not live with him for the last 5 years, but still I feel sad.

The Power of Habit

What is it that our pets do to us? While they are making themselves at home in our physical homes they are, at the same time, making themselves some room in our hearts (or, less metaphorically, one’s capacity to love). One’s heart is said to ache in these times. The description is apt but, for me, sometimes also includes my stomach and eyes and nose.

I have a theory. Your capacity to love increases to accommodate a new loved one. Your many moments in each day become new habit loops, new neural pathways, that become a part of you. And then, suddenly, this deeply ingrained part of you can no longer act on their subject because they were built for your beloved pet, who is no more.

You can keenly feel all of the sensations that you will never get to enjoy again firsthand. Only in memories and in your heart. I treasure that I will always remember what it was like to live with E-bear. But in this moment, I’d rather have my cat. This will morph in time when I am able to see with perspective. Right now I just can’t yet. This is where I am.

Taking Advantage of My Unusual State

I am amazed at the power of habit in this case to be not only connected to my behavior but also connected with my emotions and my values. In this unusual moment, where certain senses and wits are dulled and other ones are sharp I have this guess to make:

Love can be built by just showing up, just choosing to be with some thing (some one), and being consistent about it. It can be practiced. But it does require that we choose to be there. Not occasionally and not only for the key inflection points of life but for the great many ordinary moments.

I don’t know for certain. I could be totally wrong here. But that’s how it feels to me. What’s my proof? Back in 2001 or so I cried when my ex-wife’s guinea pig, Hugo died. I did not think I was attached to him. All he did was eat and drink and live in a tank. Though he did have rapid movements and was fun to watch when he was chewing.

The little bastard had snuck in. I did love him. This one data point influenced my thinking a lot.

Questions and Actions

Given this thought about love… (and switching gears to human beloveds) I am inspired to ponder who would I want to show up for that I don’t show up for enough now? What can I do to start to change that?

With my encounters in the world with people I do not yet know… how would I feel about them if I just slowed down a bit and made chit chat? What could I do to start to change that? (idea: don’t always be plugged into my phone)

I’d love to see just how large a heart could get given practice.

Influencing with Integrity or Not At All

I recently saw an incident on Facebook where a person laid out his case for why Al Gore should be president. Although I hold some admiration for Mr. Gore as a public figure, I didn’t think it was a strong enough case to convince me and I usually steer clear of politics posts. But I did read through the comments… deep down inside me there still lives a small hope that a discussion emerges rather than unconstructive bickering and the sorts of ad hominem attacks that you see when you watch politicians malign one another.

Another person had decided to make his dissent known. And the original poster (OP) engaged in a style of debate I can only summarize as moral bludgeoning, which involves using the unquestioned moral sentiments of our day to make your opponent back down rather than taking his issues head-on. I saw the OP ask if the dissenter thought that he, himself, would do better as president. I saw the OP accuse the dissenter of hipocrisy.

Calling Bull

I saw the OP try to sell Gore on his military service during the vietnam war. And when the dissenter listed his reasons for being unimpressed, I saw the original poster trying to bully the dissenter as someone diminishing a veteran’s service record. The OP said he had to call “bull”.

All of this in the name of what? Did the original poster want the dissenter’s best interests? Was the original poster interest in hearing from anyone who disagreed at all?

I argue that the OP, thought he knew better than everyone else and wanted to be “right”. I argue that the OP operates from a mode that as long as his side is in the majority, they can do what they want. After all, isn’t that democracy? Isn’t democracy the most important moral rule of our day?

Now it’s time for me to point out some “bull”:

• if you post something that is meant to influence others but you only want to hear from people who agree with you, you probably have no sense of self-worth and likely attempt to substitute the agreement of others.
• if when someone on your “friends list” disagrees with you, you use every dirty trick in the book to try to take down their credibility and malign their character, there’s a 100% chance you have no real friends.
• if you believe that the majority has the right to do whatever they want… legally, you might be right. But morally, you believe in tyranny rather than liberty.

Influencing with Integrity

I would feel bad if I ended this post on a judgmental rant. So I want to talk about what I think influence looks like when it has integrity.

It’s natural to want to try to influence the people we know. To challenge them to rise to be the best sort of people they can be. But our motives for doing so may not always be honorable. And even when we think our motives are “in their best interests” the means have become accustomed to using may be poorly suited or downright inappropriate for the sort of relationship we have.

Influence with integrity begins with dialogue, and dialogue begins with listening.
Rather than using fear-based emotional arguments, influencing with integrity entails sharing a logical progression of facts that leads to an assertion. Rather than meeting dissent with ad hominem attacks and strawmen, it involves acknowledging the validity (however small) of the dissenters argument and explaining how they went wrong or saying why you wont.

My call to the world is to thoughtfully respond rather than to blindly react. An observation: The comments box on any blog or on social media are nearly worthless for dialogue of this sort. A dialogue of back-and-forth blog entries, however, might be just the right medium. If your thought is that we don’t have the time, then I could say the same thing about any desire to influence. It takes time to do it well and if we don’t care to do it well we should leave it to others who will.

That's What She Said: A Perfect Example of Habit Formation.

“Is this box big enough to even fit all of that?”

It pretty much begs you to take a swing at it, right? This is a perfect example of a habit loop. The trigger is a statement with phrasing that could be re-contextualized as an innuendo. The habit? That’s what she said!!!

I’m pretty damn sure no one is born saying it. And as of a few years ago, now EVERYONE has said it. Everyone has practiced at looking for the perfect opportunity to drop TWSS and catch people off guard during an office meeting with people you’re not supposed to talk dirty around.

There you are looking at the screen. The text is tiny! Someone says aloud: 

“That’s really small… can you make it any bigger?”

Laughter. Genuine raucous laughter. You couldn’t design a better reward for a habit loop.

Initially, to practice at dropping a TWSS is pretty much have to be doing it all the time. At some point it requires nearly no thought.

A Possible Design Pattern

So we have here a possible lead on a design pattern. It needs some refining but I love the possibilities.  

Given some new behavior you want to make second-nature, try to figure out a reward for it. Intrinsic rewards, i.e. those which are a natural outcome, are superior to extrinsic ones. 

Then go about practicing the new behavior in the desired contexts. It also helps if there is a clear trigger though I can’t seem to identify one for TWSS other than, “someone said something”.

(Photo Credit: Bradley Gordon)

#ABQ: Two Simple Questions

Two simple questions to actively practice your commitment to being a happier person:

What’s good in my life?

What needs to be done?

(#ABQ = Ask Better Questions)

Ayn Rand on Short Story Construction

Ayn Rand has this tendency to lecture about things in her writing. This drives some people crazy but for me, I love that she has fossilized some very clear thinking about what is and what is not.

For instance… Where is the line between a novel and a short story? Before I read this, I would have said something meandering, vague, and fuzzy:

The first requirement of a short story is that it must be built around one single incident. It can be an incident which is complete in itself, or it can be an incident which summarizes and climaxes a long development of events, but it must be a single incident, like a sharp focus. Otherwise it is not the construction of a short story, but of a novel, mo matter what the length. Length is not the standard by which one differentiates a short story from a novel; the method of construction is. One cannot take a broad view of a subject, such as one takes for a novel, and say: “I will make it a short story by telling it briefly.” One must take a subject which can be brought into one focus, one concrete incident, and build the narrative around it.

(From Letter to Gerald Loeb, vice president of E.F. Hutton and Co. dated Jan 15, 1943)

…but Rand has such stark views on things that you know exactly where she would drop a line and, if you’re not too busy taking the lecture personally, you can benefit from her clarity.

She goes on to discuss, in the context the particular story she has just read by Mr. Loeb, which incident would have been the crucial one to present and why. I’ll cherry pick sentences so that we get a more concise reading:

…you must show one scene between your characters in detail, with action and dialogue. that scene must be a crucial one, not just an incidental one chosen at random, but a scene that climaxes the rest and resolves the theme of the story..
What is the theme of your story?…
The scene in which he finds it out, the scene where the woman shows her real character and the man receives a dreadful, tragic disappointment… that scene must be written and presented in detail. Then you’ll have a proper short story form.
…the reader has been reading a long general narrative, getting acquainted with the characters and waiting for the climax when he would see them in action. That unwritten scene is the local climax. If the reader does not see it–nor any other specific scene–he feels cheated. And you cannot choose another scene for a focus, because in a short story it is the crucial scene that must be featured.

So… short stories should focus on the one crucial scene, we should see the characters in action and dialogue, and there should be a climax so the reader isn’t left feeling blue.

Got it! :) Now to get to the writing.

PS - You can buy Rand’s book of letters on Amazon.com.  I have really enjoyed reading a few letters each morning.  It is a very relaxing yet invigorating way to start my days.

Knowing What You Stand For

“

Knowing what you stand against is not the same as knowing what you stand for. They are both important . The former is often a strong initial impetus in your life. Discontent can be powerful activating energy.

Only by having decided what you stand for and what you are pursuing can you reject with a clear heart any diversions from your course, which become more plentiful as you show signs of succeeding.

”

— Francis Luong

Ayn Rand - from Letter to DeWitt Emery dated Sep 10, 1941

“As to my working for P & E–I’d be delighted, if I can really go ahead with the cause. No, I’m not going to get “damned mad” about being offered a salary. I told you that I had to have a salary if I were to give the work my full time, and I won’t be any good unless I give it my full time. The job I have now takes more than eight hours a day–sometimes it’s twelve and more–so I couldn’t do any real work until I quit this. If I were a capitalist, I’d much rather work for the cause as a volunteer–but, unfortunately, I am only a proletarian defender of Capitalism, than which there is no worse thing to be. If I were a defender of Communism, I’d be a Hollywood millionaire-writer by now, with a swimming pool and a private orchestra to play the Internationale. As it is, I have to work for my living. So I’m quite definitely for sale–all of me above the next–to anyone on our side who really intends to work for our side.”

— Ayn Rand - from Letter to DeWitt Emery dated Sep 10, 1941

The Words of Clements Vonnegut to His Would-Be Mourners

Clemens Vonnegut was the great-grandfather of the author, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. They were both German Freethinker Atheists.

In Palm Sunday, in the section of essays on religion Vonnegut the junior shares a copy of the text that was read aloud at his great-grandfather’s funeral, written by Clemens himself some 32 years before.

His words to his mourners were these:

“Friends or Opponents: To all of you who stand here to deliver my body to the earth:

"To you, my next of kin:

"Do not mourn! I have now arrived at the end of the course of life, as you will eventually arrive at yours. I am at rest and nothing will ever disturb my deep slumber.

"I am disturbed by no worries, no grief, no fears, no wishes, no passions, no pains, no reproaches from others. All is infinitely well with me.

"I departed from life with loving, affectionate feelings for all mankind; and I admonish you: Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others’ welfare.

"This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognize discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. Therefore, let us explain as often as possible, and particularly at the departure from life, that we base our faith on firm foundations, on Truth for putting into action our ideas which do not depend on fables and ideas which Science has long ago proven to be false.

"We also with Knowledge, Goodness, Sympathy, Mercy, Wisdom, Justice, and Truthfulness. We also strive for and venerate all those attributes from which the fantasy of man has created a God. We also strive for the virtues of Temperance, Industriousness, Friendship, and Peace. We believe in pure ideas based on Truth and Justice.

"Therefore, however, we do not believe, cannot believe, that a Thinking Being existed for millions and millions of years, and eventually and finally out of nothing–through a Word–created this world, or rather this earth with its Firmament, its Sun and Moon and the Stars.

"We cannot believe that this Being formed a human being from clay and Breathed into it an Immortal Soul and then allowed this human being to procreate millions, and then delivered them all into unspeakable misery, wretchedness and pain for all eternity. Nor can we believe that the descendants of one or two human beings will inevitably become sinners; nor do we believe that through the criminal executions of an Innocent One may we be redeemed.”

Have mercy! I love the audacity of the last two paragraphs.

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Photo Credit: Sue Hasker

tags: #Vonnegut #Atheism