FIREBOMB YOUR LIFE

April 30th, 2018

The better things are, the less likely we want to stir the pot. Right?

Is the opposite true? Shouldn’t it make sense that the worse things are, the more willing we should be to stir the pot? I mean, what do you have to lose? Cut roots and take to the wind.

If things are mediocre, and this whole game ends with death anyhow, why not get feisty with the time left? Like those seniors who escaped from their retirement home. They had nothing to lose.

Perhaps the more interesting bit about those seniors is if they’d wished they’d developed that attitude sooner in life…

The only person who is really watching you, is you. At the very least, do yourself a favor and make it entertaining.

SAMPLE ALL THE KOOL-AIDES

April 29th, 2018

Why not try any available strategy to make it happen? Even if we don’t like it. Perhaps the more important question is why don’t we like it? 

Plants and trees strike their roots out in every direction possible. Just to cover their bases. You never know where the goods are going to be. 

Zig Ziglar might have a bunch of religious things to say, but does one potentially unattractive aspect taint the whole thing? Maybe. But if things are truly not good. Isn’t “I’ll take what I can get” or “I’ll use what I’ve got” a better strategy than the cynicism, nihilism, and the overly-critical mindset that got us to such a low point? Isn’t denying one’s self the potential good of something that’s not perfect, a limitation and a potential hindrance to making progress? . . .Much like the one little limiting religious aspect of the exuberant lecture that might make it seem for some like a claustrophobic turn-off? 

Shunning everything that might help simply because it’s not perfect, invariably limits us. From the benefits, from the growth, from the chance to develop a smarter mind, that can pick out all the useful, nutritious pieces for a future self, a better self. 

Identifying negatives for the sake of more inaction has a negative impact on us. It’s like passing up a free $5 because it’s not a ten dollar bill. 

If we’re really drowning, we’ll grab for anything. 

If we’re really drowning, we’ll break all limits of our personal bubble and reach out. 

If we’re really drowning, what have we got to lose?

First we must sample all the Kool-Aides.  And then we must cherry-pick, mix and match the flavors that will work just for us.

LIGHTNING AND TREES

April 28th, 2018

Trees throw their roots and branches in all directions to cover their bases.  You just can’t be sure where the water or the sun is going to be.   

This has something in common with lightning.

We naturally think of lightning as something that is instant and certain, but examining the formation of lightning on a microsecond level yields some fascinating stuff.

If you slow down some footage of lightning (and there’s some good youtube video of this with a link on the post at the tinkeredthinking website) you will see that long before the visible lightning occurs, there is a little blast of electricity that scatters out from a cloud.  It looks like many many pieces of lightning that are all branching out simultaneously.  Each arm is reaching, searching, changing direction every instant.  This tangle of lightening grows and grows and grows until.

One of them touches something.  Then.

boom.

The one path from the cloud through all of the other possible paths lights up a thousand fold, and that’s the lightning we see.  We don’t see all the other ‘failed’ ones that didn’t touch anything.  It’s the survivor basis of storms.  We only see the path that made it.  We don’t see all the other searching, wandering attempts.

Before the boom, lightning looks very much like a tree, reaching out in as many directions as possible.  But unlike a tree, lightening only needs one touch to work.

Can we learn from something as mundane as a tree and something as spectacular as lightening?

How many directions have each of us wandered?  Truly wandered.

How many ways have we tried it? How many more ways could it have been tried?

How have we covered our bases?

What do trees and lightening have in common? 

They are both a structural analogy for Curiosity.

NATURAL SPRING

April 27th, 2018

Picture a village well.

It’s a source of life that is visited daily by everyone.

Picture this village well overflowing. Forget everything about aquifers and how natural springs occur in nature. Forget the village. Just picture a well with nothing but fairly even ground all around it, and this well is overflowing.

What happens to the water? It spills over the edges of the well and goes all over the place in a growing blob. It advances with the small fluctuations in the land around it, racing into a dip and filling. Overflowing again, uncontrolled.

What to do?

Imagine you had a short time before you knew the well was going to overflow. What could you do?

Picture yourself like a kid at the beach, scraping out a path that leads out from the well. Then the water overflows once more. 

But this time, it has somewhere to go, if only for a short distance. Your small canal fills up and leads the water quickly out in the direction you chose. Till it reaches the end and the canal overflows. The chaos of too much water spreads again.

The next time, the remnant of your canal is still there. The edges have rounded, and it’s filled in some. But it’s something compared to nothing. It takes no time to shape it up again, make it a little longer, deeper, give it a turn or two. And then before the well overflows, you have time to start another canal leading off in a different direction. 

This time both your canals carry off the water till it’s too much and everything overflows again.

But you work again, and each time, you deepen your canals, you lengthen them and you add new ones.

Eventually, one day. The well will overflow, and your network of canals will fill like dominos falling. It will flow and glisten like some kind of magnificent maze. A landscape of your own design.

But what are we talking about here?

The well is simply the source of emotion. The water is the emotion. Doesn’t matter what kind, happy or sad. Just raw emotion.

When a child has a temper tantrum, that water is gushing from the well and going everywhere. 

The canals dug out from that well are our habits, our strategies, our systems. And they are all our own design. We may have built them haphazardly, even unconsciously, and probably poorly. Some may even lead to bad places. Perhaps only a few have been dug, and often overflow, leaving us to look like that little child, deranged by emotion. Rendered incapable, paralyzed and confused.

But each day is an opportunity to dig.

And while it may be constantly discouraging to see your canals flooded and overflowing, rounded and partially filled each time. At least something of them still exists when the waters recede. And you have something to work with. Something to work on. 

Till one day. After so many days of consistent constant work – work too big to be done in a day, work that must be done like dominos, when only one block can be set up in a day. Some kind of black swan comes along. Something unanticipated, perhaps disastrous. And the well overflows.

But now you respond differently. You have planned by practicing. By working and building. You interpret the disaster differently, and instead of simply reacting, now, you can take action. 

Your mandala of water is unfulfilled without emotion. 

And now some disaster has become an opportunity to see it work. 

What a gift.

P.S. Remember, once rivers get deep enough, they start digging on their own. Think of the grand canyon. Think of all your bad habits, and how entrenched them seem, how deep they have dug on their own. What about good habits? Where will you dig next?

THE FAILED DANCE OF THE KNOW-IT-ALL AND THE PERIWINKLE

April 26th, 2018

Know-it-all’s make people feel that they are wrong. The know-it-all makes it very plain and obvious that other person’s mental map of the world is inaccurate. 

But the know-it-all is just trying to be helpful.

Trying to be helpful, but failing to help.

Why?

Not only does feedback imply that a person’s mental map is inaccurate but it also implies the need for further action to rectify the map. This requires subduing an emotional tie to our own grandiosity and certainty. Subduing the fact that we think we know what we know AND combating laziness that keeps us from taking the next action. This is heavy leg-work. Not easily undertaken. Especially if the emotional environment is one of defensiveness and uncomfortable vulnerability. 

How does the know-it-all come to be the know-it-all? Questions. The know-it-all is curious and asks questions. But when the know-it-all looks to share knowledge, the know-it-all forgets that the acquisition of such knowledge started with a questioning. Without a similar questioning in another person, such proffered knowledge can easily come across as offensive, annoying and even belittling. The know-it-all must foster questions, not simply deluge info.

The next time someone says something inaccurate. Can we pause before we try to correct someone?

Can we challenge ourselves with some questions:

What sort of question can I ask to help this person examine their own thoughts on the subject?

Is there a question I can ask that will help them get at the core of their feelings on the subject?

Perhaps what they find might be illuminating in an unexpected way?

Might that way be more welcoming to new information?

Then again, new information might not even be needed.

Questioning is a self-starting journey.

People are smarter and better than we give them credit for.

Often all they need is a better question. A better question to help them probe a subject on their own.

A natural defensive reaction to a show-off, holier-than-thou, know-it-all, definitely doesn't help someone on this journey. In fact it nearly guarantees that someone won't go on the curious journey that is needed.

{This is the reason for the "Backfire Effect" in psychology. The Backfire Effect is when people who are confronted with facts that directly contradict their beliefs become more certain of their original beliefs instead of becoming skeptical of their own accuracy. Logic would hold that facts contrary to beliefs would mean that the beliefs are somehow flawed and therefore must be improved or removed altogether. But this is not what happens. The emotional strain of coming across new information that implies a failure on our part shuts down a welcoming attitude in normal people.}

Can we start a culture of questions?

Can we challenge ourselves to find better questions?

Periwinkles are small marine snails. Any sudden movement will make that sucker clam up fast.

Any beach loving kid knows that you can’t force a periwinkle open. That’ll just kill it.

Those beach loving kids also know how to get a periwinkle to open up:

Patience and singing. 

Might the change that we are looking to make in others be like our periwinkle? 

Elusive and easily startled?

Might it be better to first help someone feel comfortable?

Might our message be aided by a comfortable and curious ear?

Confrontation creates defense. 

Defense is another way of saying fear.

Fear is the killer of curiosity.

Therefore.

Might a blunt message create confrontation? 

Might a confrontation create a defensive posture? 

Might the fear behind that defensive posture kill the very curiosity we need for our message to succeed?

Might the know-it-all in all of us be aided by a thoughtful pause and a kind and generous consideration of the people we wish to help by correcting? 

The intention is to help. 

But have we examined the way we try to help?

Can our good intention be honored by a more thoughtful method?

Has the alternative ever really worked anyway?