WILL IT

November 21st, 2018

Occasionally, during particularly dramatic parts of movies, or even books, we will witness a character who is so full of confidence, and often anger, and self-assured ability, they will declare some kind of divine influence over events.  They’ll say something ridiculous like,

“I will it to happen.”

As though they are endowed with such an intimate tie to the core of reality that their mere thoughts seem to have an effect on the way things go.

Of course, the word ‘will’ as discussed in a previous episode of Tinkered Thinking, Episode 184, entitled ‘Will Power’, will derives from a much less impressive sounding word.  Will comes from wish.

Imagine for a moment swapping out that powerful-sounding line ‘I will it’, with  I wish.

Generally, when we say, ‘I wish’, is when we are being pessimistically facetious about something we’d love to see happen but feel certain will never materialize.

The attitudes of each situation match the connotations perfectly, and yet – etymologically speaking – both words derive from the same meaning.

What else might we say about these two diametrically opposed attitudes?  The first one who is full of fire in the movies, gritting teeth and saying “I will it to happen!”.  Would we call such a posture… lazy?

Certainly not.  Such a person is practically on fire with drive, while the person who swings a limp hand at the non-possibility of some better reality and says “I wish”…. how would we characterize such a person?  Would we say that such an attitude has the same amount of drive as the first?  Certainly not.  The second is an attitude marked my stagnation.

There’s simply no forward momentum with such a person, just a sense of being dragged through time.

These two attitudes or postures towards the things we can dream up indicate how we view the source of change for reality.  One of them is external, meaning, when we merely wish for something to happen, we expect it to happen for us.  But when we will something into existence.  That posture is placing the responsibility square on our own shoulders to figure out how to make it happen.

Instead of making a wish and tossing a coin into a fountain, we’d do best to realize there are two sides to the coin we wish upon.  We can have a nice thought about a possible future and toss that possibility to the whims of fate as we toss a coin into that fountain.  Or we can flip that coin, and realize there is another way to wish.  We can will something into existence.

But the posture here is different.  There is no leaving things to the whims of fate.  There is drive, there is determination, there is energy, all of which contribute to our ability to work towards something.

We can realize that we do not simply will things into existence like some magical genie.

We will things into existence by working them into existence.  By working with reality, pulling the levers of reality, rearranging it’s parts, sculpting them, deconstructing them, repairing them, until what we had the will and wish to see happen, is done.

This episode references Episode 184: Will Power.

NEVER LOST

November 20th, 2018

What separates those who are driven from those who feel lost?  Very few people haven’t felt lost at some point in their lives, and so this end of the spectrum is perhaps an easier one to start at, not to mention the fact no one is looking for this end as a destination.  Driven individuals are generally not looking to feel lost in life. 

Someone who feels lost, however, might latch on to some of the quaint aphorisms that float around in culture, such as:

All those who wander are not lost.

It’s the journey not the destination that counts.

A person who generally feels lost might feel momentary comfort in such phrases, feeling comfort in redefining the situation as a wandering journey.

Of course, in order to wander and be on a journey, one generally has to move.  And going to and from work everyday does not necessarily cut the cake here, nor does merely existing through time.

The feeling of being lost is not really being clueless about what destination to shoot for, it’s the feeling of stagnation.  It’s the feeling of standing still and not moving in any direction at all.  This might be at the core of the concept of FOMO, the acronym for ‘fear of missing out’.  Those who are too involved in what they are doing or exploring, don’t really have the mental space to concentrate on what they might be missing out on.   Standing still and doing nothing, however, or lacking concentration and attention on what is going on in the moment gives rise to the space and mental stagnation necessary for thoughts of FOMO to intervene.

Driven people have a hypothesis about the near future, and they are hunting around in order to find out if reality will prove their hypothesis right or wrong.  An important distinction, however, is that if reality pokes back in a way that seems to indicate that a hypothesis is wrong, a driven individual will not necessarily give up, but probe reality further, taking feedback from reality as an indication to pivot and try a different strategy in order to test the hypothesis.  If you erase the concept of ‘hypothesis’ from this situation and merely look at the behavior of such a person without their goal in mind...  It simply looks like they are wandering.  You might even say they look lost.

We can switch tracks and imagine being on a trail through the woods.  Many people who actually get lost in the woods are rarely very far from the trail they are seeking, and unfortunately many perish this way.

We can imagine ourselves in such a situation.  Feeling overwhelmed, afraid to move because we might become more lost and more separated from the path we wish we were on.  Where lies the first step in this situation?

Organization is the key.

Even with no equipment, we could begin by walking in a straight line and breaking branches on trees as we walk.  We might even be thoughtful enough to make this line extend from the direction where the sun rises to where the sun sets, thereby establishing a rough east/west axis.  Even without the sun this exercise creates orientation out of nowhere.  It might not be orientation relative to where we’d like to be, but it orients ourselves relative to where we have been.  We might even use such branches to create letters and numbers on the ground next to a tree and slowly build a grid system.  By doing so, we can slowly expand the part of the environment that we have organized and mapped.  We can do this continuously until our organized system grows to touch some other familiar organization, like a trail, and then boom, we’ve found where we were hoping to go.

A driven individual is simply attempting to wander in an organized way.  Ensuring that the same mistake isn’t made, i.e. blindly taking the same path to nowhere productive

Our ability to plan what will happen tomorrow is relegated to a very small pixel of the universe.  But relative to ourselves and the portion of reality that we get to wander around in, it’s everything, and our ability to wander productively ultimately is the biggest factor in determining just how much success we are likely to encounter.

This episode references Episode 72: Persevere vs. Pivot, Episode 165: Set Sail, and Episode 57: Compass.

STAR GAZING

November 19th, 2018

If we close our eyes for a moment and concentrate on the sensations of the hand, we can probably discern the sensations of the separate fingers, the thumb as separate from the ring finger, but if we concentrate on the hand generally, it’s not too difficult for the whole sensation of the hand to dissolve into a cloud of feeling. 

We can do this with the whole body.  Perhaps there’s a particularly bright discomfort in the back from sitting or standing too long, or a recent paper cut or stubbed toe is lighting up.  Again, as with the hand, if we try to focus on the entire sensation of the body, it’s not difficult for the whole light show to resolve into cloud.

From the standpoint of neurobiology, we can define different sensing mechanisms that are responsible for this.  In the skin, for instance, there are tiny little cells, like mechanical gadgets in some cases that are responsible for a feeling of pressure against the skin, or stretching, or even heat.  The presence of any of phenomena trigger these cells that then fire off signals to the brain to indicate what is going on.  Even when nothing in particular seems to be going on, such mechanisms are still firing and communicating with the brain.

An interesting aspect of this whole system is that it is not evenly distributed.  We do not have nearly as many of these sensing cells in the skin of the thigh as we do in our hands.  We can experience this directly when we close our eyes and concentrate on the sensations we are feeling.  The hands seem to be far more active and dense than the thighs, and yet the hands are much smaller.

One benefit of exploring in this exercise is simply to notice how arbitrary the naming of certain things can be.  The word ‘finger’ is of little consequence to an infant who has just figured out how to use such a limb effectively.

All of this has much in common with star gazing.

Since we have had eyes that can look up, we have been seeing a giant cloud of tiny lights up in the clear skies.

And yet, no matter the culture nor place on earth, we have, without knowing what those lights are, ascribed all sorts of shapes and stories to the stars.

The stars did not decide on the constellations, we did.  And their connection and relation is completely arbitrary. 

And yet.

We can get lost in an idea of some thing’s identity and lose touch with it’s nature in terms of basic reality.  This is akin to being obsessed about the constellation and completely forgetting about the stars.

Imagine for a moment zooming through the cosmos to some other neighboring solar system and gazing at the same stars that make up our constellations here on earth.  Depending on exactly where we zoom off to, it is possible to see the exact same stars.  We would be observing the same part of reality.  And yet, would we be able to pick out the same constellations?  Not at all.  The identity of a constellation is directly related to our perspective and the angle and position of that perspective.

Positioning here, is essential.

Juxtapose for a moment these two situations:

Two people on some news show talking about politics.  They awkwardly attempt to talk towards each other while still facing the camera. 

And this situation.

Someone trying to point out a star to a friend.  Such a person brings a friend in close, their faces next to each other in an attempt to try and have that friend occupy the same space.  Such a person will probably even move a little, so the friend can occupy the exact place they were, and then recalibrate how they are pointing at the sky to account for the shift in position.

Notice the ways in which the second situation is full of generosity.  The friend is willing to change position, to come closer to the physical perspective in order to see and understand.  And the friend trying to point out that star is willing to give up their own position somewhat in order to make room.  Both are willing to get closer to one another.

It’s often pointed out that people are easily brought together when they have a common enemy.  They give up facing off at one another in order to stand next to one another in the face of an enemy.

But what this often reiterated strategy of bringing people together really describes is a change in positioning.  An enemy is not necessarily required, just some common object of focus.

We can go back to the exercise at the beginning, close our eyes, concentrate on the cloud of sensation that we ascribe to our hand, and then simply rotate our hand.  Our relationship to what we think of as ‘hand’ has changed a little bit, we feel it a bit differently, but this does not really change the hand at all, just our relationship to it.  In this case, the constellation disappears, but it’s still the same stars.

Whatever constellation we wish to ascribe to the new relationship is still arbitrary.  Concentrating on the constellation more than the basic reality of seeing stars, is the trap of identity.

This episode references Episode 157: Conquer or Concur?, and Episode 17: The Identity Danger.

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: OBSTACLE HUNTER

November 18th, 2018

When Lucilius was middle aged he came to the realization that he had lost something integral to what it means to be alive.  This realization had snuck up on him gradually and when he fully realized what sort of thought had been creeping up on him, he stopped doing everything he had going on and walked to a park every morning and spent the days contemplating what exactly it was that he had lost.

After several days he felt as though he was circling the answer and getting ever closer.  And just as he felt as though the words to perfectly describe the object of his search were bubbling up in his mind, a small dust devil gathered in the park and stirred the autumn leaves into a small whirlwind.   He watched the leaves rise and then tighten into the circular column of wind.  He followed the narrowing width of the column down to the bottom and noticed that not a single leaf occupied that bottom spot on the ground where one could imagine it being torn apart.  The leaves simply rustled in a tighter circle, tumbling around on the ground.

Lucilius realized in that moment that he had likewise been circling with his thoughts and as close he might get, he was never going to get at the center of it.  The whirlwind he was watching slowly dissipated, dropping leaves as it lost power.

Lucilius decided to approach what was going on from a different angle.  Instead of trying to think his way to some sort of solution that he imagined might exist, he decided to recreate his youth, and instantly dreams of a big adventure across many lands popped into his mind.  But just as quickly, the idea lost it’s luster.  Would such an adventure just be a distraction he wondered?  He thought about the adventures he’d had throughout his life and asked himself if there was some sort of thread that ran through them, binding them together in their combined usefulness.  It was not the epic landscapes, nor the foreign food, nor sounds of different places, not necessarily even the people, though these are all touted as such important aspects of such adventures.  Lucilius did not deny them their value, but there was something else, more elemental that he was looking for, the thread that has come lose and pulled smoothly from who he now found he was.

A young mother, tired and moving slow followed as her toddler doddled out into the grassy park stippled with rusted leaves.  The child tripped, fell and paused, contemplating what had happened before scrunching face and letting out a howl.  The mother, who had just sat on a bench let her face momentarily fall into her hand so she could rub her eyes before she got up and walked over to the child.   

Lucilius got up and walked away.  The next day he boarded a plane and flew to an arid part of the world.  On the edge of a vast desert, he purchased a truck.  It took some strange negotiating, but he made sure that he was sold a truck with many issues.  He drove the truck to a local hardware store and bought some jugs of water and a completely random assortment of tools, paying no mind to the sort that might be needed by such a problem truck.

And then he drove off into the evening desert.  It wasn’t two hours into the hottest part of the next day when the truck broke down.

Lucilius got out and looked around.  There was nothing in sight save for magnificent plateaus standing like lone bricks taken from the sky.  There was no help and Lucilius had brought no way to communicate with anyone else.

With sweat running down his face, he unloaded his box of tools and popped the hood.  He looked at the dizzying complexity of the mechanics in front of him and felt a sense of panic overwhelm him with anxiety.

He looked around again at the empty vastness and then remembered why he’d come to this place.  Astonished that he’s nearly completely forgot, he burst out laughing, alone in the middle of nowhere.  He smiled, wondering how he might get out of this mess, and opened the box of tools.  He pulled out a gardening shovel and laughed again, remembering how mindlessly he had tossed things into the shopping cart.

With sun and wide sky above him, he took in the hot air and smiled. 

“Well old boy,” he said.  “You got yourself in this mess, you can get yourself out, so let’s figure out how you’re gonna do it.”

Lucilius got to work, slowly guiding the lost thread back.

TAKE IT TO THE MIN

November 17th, 2018

Usually we hear about taking it to the max.  Turn the volume up to eleven, go the extra mile, just one more drink, do one more push up, just one more bite.  Just one more pair of shoes or gadget.  Just one more Netflix episode.

It would be easy to just label ourselves as consumers, often mindless in the act of consuming, and shake a finger at this culture of consumerism, but like any generality, this misses nuances that begin to erode such a label.

We would be better described as filters of experience.  We are like combs that are passing through all the various versions of reality that we can muster.  Perhaps we are organizing it, or perhaps like a combine harvester for farming; we are trying to separate the fruit from the straw in order to level-up our current reality to a more interesting and expansive one.

Unfortunately it seems that the long time we spent without abundance dictates in evolutionary biology that we have feedback mechanisms in our brain, mostly attached to dopamine production that has us geared towards taking it to the max when it comes to things we find pleasurable, like food, sex and rock and roll.  Oh and drugs of course.

The opiate crisis, the obesity epidemic, and the ubiquity of internet pornography might simply be described as the result of a dopamine mechanism that is still calibrated to much leaner environment when such abundance was not available.  Our systems were in equilibrium in those earlier leaner times and now that we’ve changed the environment, our systems don’t respond ideally because they are not calibrated for such ripe resources.  This is essentially what evolutionary biology seeks to explore.

While the dopamine cycle might win a majority when it comes to dictating human behavior, it does not dictate all human behavior.

That dopamine cycle is part of an older part of the brain if we view the brain in terms of evolutionary development.

Our newer hardware, the neocortex is where our executive function mostly resides, and it’s this part of the brain where we as humans can do a truly remarkable thing: we can learn something conceptually, understand it’s full ramifications without actually experiencing them, and then override our older systems, such as the dopamine cycle and change our behavior to gain a greater understanding and experience of reality.

To put it simply, we might be hardwired to take it to the max, but we can run any new program we want, thus allowing us to take it to the minimum.  That is if doing so makes sense.

Take for example the case of Angus Barbieri.  In 1965 Angus weighed 456 pounds, and in that same year he decided he was sick of being so heavy.  So, under doctor supervision, he went on a fast.  The doctors recommended a short fast, but Angus really took it to the minimum.  He fasted for 382 days and lost 276 pounds.  He took vitamins and drank tea, coffee and sparkling water, but other than that, he did not eat. 

Just remember that fact next time you hear yourself say “I’m starving!” or when you hear someone else say it.  If you have the resources to read this post or listen to this episode, then it’s simply not true.  The human body has powers that are unfortunately rarely tapped in our comfortable modern society.

The benefits of fasting have been known in the scientific community for decades and recent research is only adding robustness to this old knowledge. 

It does well to think about it this way:  If you knew you were going to lose 90% of the possessions in your home tomorrow, what would you safeguard today?  This is essentially what the body does when there’s no food available.  It holds on to the essentials, making them stronger and more robust and then… literally…. cuts the fat.

William James once wrote, “We learn most about a thing when we view it under a microscope, as it were, or in its most exaggerated form.”

Exaggerated form is the key phrase here.  The extremes are where things literally reveal the breadth of their existence.  If you run for as long as you can today, that’s potentially useful information.  Funny enough though, if you do so, you’ll be able to run farther tomorrow, and extend your own personal extreme.

Sitting in silence for one minute might feel chaotic and unbearable, but do it enough times and gradually the experience changes. 

This is another way to take it to the minimum.  Those who meditate daily are trying to do essentially that.  Take the mind down to a current minimum of activity.  For reasons beyond the scope here, it clearly has a lot of long term benefit.

Another example is a sort of lifestyle exercise that the ancient Stoics used to practice and recommend.  Seneca would for several days a month eat the plainest food, wear the simplest clothing and sleep on the floor.  Though he was one of the wealthiest men of his time, he found great benefit in this practice because it kept him perpetually prepared for potential disaster.  If he woke up one day and found that he’d somehow lost all of his wealth, the experience of living on bare essentials would not be a shock, and so his mind was protected from panic, distress and chaos in this way.

Risk is a very strange concept in our cultural mind these days.  Somehow, in the same cultural breath, we say that improvement and innovation requires taking risk, and yet we constantly look for safe, risk-averse options.

The mistake is thinking that this is an either/or situation.  We love either/or’s because for whatever reason we love taking a side, perhaps it helps with establishing some kind of identity.  Straddling categories seems to be difficult even though this is generally where the most interesting and beneficial experiences arise from.

We can ask about our behaviors and habits, what should we try to take to the max and what would be interesting to take to the minimum?

To loosely quote Brian Koppelman and David Levien: the only person more capable than a man with infinite resources is someone with nothing to lose.

Taking one’s self to the minimum can make one invincible to things that annoy, frustrate and panic other people, granting you clarity to see the next best step when everyone else is caught up in their own idea of what’s happening.