Okay, I said I'd get around to my issues with Rationality several months ago. So maybe I actually should. To start, I'm not against being rational. It's just a mode of thought that says "don't use invalid premises." The problems start when you try to define what an "invalid premise" is. Based on how you do it, Rationality as a worldview forks into two major camps:
Truth-Rationality: an invalid premise is one that contradicts objective reality. In other words, seek the truth, and only the truth. Believing in, say, astrology is right out. Sometimes called "epistemic rationality".
Value-Rationality: an invalid premise is one that makes it more difficult to achieve your goals. Believing in astrology is okay if it by some strange miracle benefits you in the long run. Sometimes called "instrumental rationality".
I feel that Value-Rationality is pretty tautological (Think things that are good for you! Don't think things that are bad for you!), so I'd like to focus most of the rest of this post on Truth-Rationality. Most people who've gushed to me about Rationality have, explicitly or not, taken that stance. And it's a very tempting stance to take. Truth is good, so why not use it in all things? I can think of three general reasons:
The Truth isn't always available. This is primarily true with non-naturalistic things, such as religion and the supernatural. When the rationalist says "it's irrational to believe in god", he's saying that there's no evidence to believe in god. But at the same time, there's not evidence to not believe in god, either. If you start talking about how it's unnecessary or hurts people, then you're not arguing about the truth. You're making a value-judgment.
The Truth isn't always necessary. Do we have free will? Who cares? Having free will isn't gonna affect you one way or another. Trying to come up with a "rational" argument about it is a waste of time.
The Truth isn't always helpful. This is the important one. People are far more empowered by their beliefs than their knowledge. If you learn knowledge that contradicts your beliefs, then you could very well sabotage your ability to do well in something. Normally this is used in conjunction with belief in religion, but that topic is so damn volatile I'd like to give some more down to earth examples:
-If you take a group of students and tell half of them they are smart and the other half they are hard workers, the latter group will develop considerably more over time. This is true even that group didn't start out as hard workers. Their untrue beliefs give rise to actual, measurable differences in ability.
-Let's say you start going to the gym. Initially, you feel embarrassed that you're so much less fit than everybody else there, but tell yourself that they're not paying attention and focus on exercising. Over months you start getting much stronger and healthier. When you start talking to the other gym-goers, one admits that during the first two months everybody was laughing at you behind your back.
Would you really have wanted to know that from the start?
And no, don't go "that wouldn't have stopped me". Unless you've been bullied before (and even then) you have no way of predicting just how much pain it would have caused you. Maybe it would have been tolerable. Or maybe it would have caused you to go less or even stop entirely. Is having do deal with the truth really so much better than just pretending that everything is okay?
This isn't a special case, either. Confidence in yourself is almost a necessary condition to succeeding at something. It's easier to give a good speech if you're confident you're a good speaker, even if that means overestimating yourself. And confidence in yourself is often disconnected from the truth. It's very hard for physical knowledge to make you feel better about something- Our minds are better at manifesting raw emotive will than producing it from abstract facts. The truth can help, if it provides grounds to support, and it can prompt you to do better, if you can see room for improvement. But for truth to always help? Nope. It's a lot easier to use the truth to shatter your confidence than to bolster it.
This is not to say that the truth is conditionally bad. Often it's incredibly important we find it. One of the big advantages of Rationality as a worldview is that it emphasizes we understand our cognitive biases, like our habit of externalizing our problems. And often, even if the truth hurts now it will help in the long run. But that doesn't mean you should embrace it and damn the consequences. There may be a way of using false premises in the short run and the truth in the long run. Delusion is a pretty neat thing.
Now a lot of rationalists say there's No Such Thing. There's never a case where a false premise provides more value than a true one. This is such a sweeping statement about humanity that I find it utterly ridiculous. See the gym example. See religion. People are a mess of contradictions and groundless beliefs, but many can draw power from it. If you can live completely free of false premises and still have the same level of empowerment, then you're not human. You're an ubermensch.
Truth-Rationality has some serious problems. You're welcome to still have it as a worldview, but you should recognize that it cannot and does not work for everybody. Sadly, I do see a lot of Truth-Rationalists see themselves as better than those who aren't. Maybe if you could be a perfect TR, where your mind is just so and the flaws in TR don't apply to you. But if you were a perfect TR, you'd see yourself as equal to everybody else on this earth. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as it drives you to grow as a person.
Or not, if that's not your goal. I shouldn't be judging.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
The Hardest Question
I find I write best when I am writing about someone who, justifiably or not, made me rage. This last happened on Sat night, when a few of us were drunkenly playing the answers game. You know, ask somebody a question, and if they don't answer it they have to take a drink. Over the course of the game I grew progressively more frustrated with the answers I was getting. I was angling pretty heavily at darker, heaver questions than the rest of the group, and a lot of the answers I was getting were flippant or "I dunno".* Finally, when it came to my last question, I turned to the person across from me and asked "What's the hardest question someone can ask you, not because of what you'd have to admit to them but because of what you'd have to admit yourself?"
At which point he mocked me and said that if there was any such question, his natural curiosity would mean he'd want to answer it anyway. The question, to him, was intrinsically stupid. So naturally the rest of this post will be me trying to argue that it isn't.
Like it or not, everybody is delusional. If you believe you aren't then you've gone straight past 'deluded' and into 'crazy'. Anything you believe pragmatically as opposed to empirically is a delusion, and there are a LOT of those. "I am destined for greatness." "My ethical system is the best one." "Grad school will be worth it." Even though the claim is tenuous or even outright false (like a/theism to theists/atheists), what matters is that it affects you. And it doesn't necessarily have to be negative- it often isn't. Maybe you're getting motivation, or courage, or even just comfort. What's important is that you're getting something at the cost of truth.
Maintaining delusions is a delicate balancing act. Moreso for college students, who have both the opportunity and temptation to break them. We are drawn to the truth, but truth is fatal to happy lies. It's possible to have both the truth and the lie, building a convoluted bridge between them. But that bridge is itself a delusion, and just as vulnerable to the truth. Easier to refuse to believe part of the truth, just enough so that we can keep our toolbox. It's not pleasant, but we have to function somehow.
Now some people would argue that any delusion is inherently less useful than the truth, and discarding them will eventually put you in a better place. I don't like this argument. There are definitely some cases where the truth sets you free. "I am inherently better than {racial group}" is a good one. Whatever comfort that provides you does not make up for your terribleness, and the truth can only help you. But all delusions? No. Belief can move mountains. We know this. To say otherwise is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. Sometimes the truth can hurt you. Deciding when it won't is what makes it hard.
This brings us back to our original question. The hardest question you can ask yourself is a question about whether a cherished belief is a delusion. And if it is, whether to build the labyrinth of self-deception or give up a meaningful part of you. Whether to reject the ugly truth or the beautiful lie.
Sounds like a tough question to me.
*Yeah, I know that most people don't like playing this way. I'll admit it was a bit of a faux pas.**
**A lot of a faux pas.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Broken Bikes
I often talk about how experience is the most important thing ever for self-direction. To take it a little out of the realm of theory, I want to share a recent experience that I think will help me down the line.
Last Friday was supposed to be a pretty exciting day. Right after work I was going to be doing a huge bike ride, followed by a Blues dance at 8. Given the rest of the week being bad for various reasons, I was seriously looking forward to everything.
I got out of work and immediately biked over the meeting point. six of my other friends were there, and we set off with everybody else. Then, about ten minutes after we start, my front brake snaps. I immediately pull off the street and get down to fix it.
One problem: I don't know anything about bikes. I can change a tire and unjam a gear, but that's about it. I spend two hours staring and tinkering with the bike, trying to figure out what the heck is going on. To make matters worse the only tool I have is a wrench. Oh, and my false tooth falls out halfway through. That hurts a bit.
After finally working out how to fix the bike, I manage to get the brakes half working. I need special tools or two extra people in order to get them proper. It's already 8:00 now and I'm missing the dance. I try to find it, but because I'm far from the biking stop point I'm a little lost. I get more lost trying to find it, and by 8:30 I give up and bike back to the city.
Okay, so what does this have to do with experience? The lessons I'm learning from this are:
1) If you're not prepared everything can change from "awesome" to "terrible" in the span of a few seconds, and
2) How to fix a brake.
The second lesson is a little more immediately useful. Hey, it's a new skill. Friday was incredibly frustrating and stressful, but that's in the past now. If the same thing happens in the future, I'll be prepared to handle it. It's also now a lot more obvious to me that I need to know my bike inside and out, so that a similar problem doesn't floor me either.
The first lesson, though, is gonna take a little longer to internalize. I didn't even realize the brakes could snap like that. How do I prepare for the unknown? I think a better thing to take away is that even if things spiral out like this, it's always recoverable. It could take a few hours to get back on track, but at least I will get back on track, and I'll learn something out of it.
If you asked me before the ride "hey, do you want your brakes to snap and you learn how to fix them", I would say "hell no". If you asked me now "hey, do you want to have it so your brakes never snapped and you never learned how to fix them", I'd probably say "no" again, although I don't know how I'd handle the temptation. I think that's a really interesting comment on how we make choices: even if we know something is better for us in the long run, and we'll be glad it happened once its over, we'll still refuse to choose it.
Last Friday was supposed to be a pretty exciting day. Right after work I was going to be doing a huge bike ride, followed by a Blues dance at 8. Given the rest of the week being bad for various reasons, I was seriously looking forward to everything.
I got out of work and immediately biked over the meeting point. six of my other friends were there, and we set off with everybody else. Then, about ten minutes after we start, my front brake snaps. I immediately pull off the street and get down to fix it.
One problem: I don't know anything about bikes. I can change a tire and unjam a gear, but that's about it. I spend two hours staring and tinkering with the bike, trying to figure out what the heck is going on. To make matters worse the only tool I have is a wrench. Oh, and my false tooth falls out halfway through. That hurts a bit.
After finally working out how to fix the bike, I manage to get the brakes half working. I need special tools or two extra people in order to get them proper. It's already 8:00 now and I'm missing the dance. I try to find it, but because I'm far from the biking stop point I'm a little lost. I get more lost trying to find it, and by 8:30 I give up and bike back to the city.
Okay, so what does this have to do with experience? The lessons I'm learning from this are:
1) If you're not prepared everything can change from "awesome" to "terrible" in the span of a few seconds, and
2) How to fix a brake.
The second lesson is a little more immediately useful. Hey, it's a new skill. Friday was incredibly frustrating and stressful, but that's in the past now. If the same thing happens in the future, I'll be prepared to handle it. It's also now a lot more obvious to me that I need to know my bike inside and out, so that a similar problem doesn't floor me either.
The first lesson, though, is gonna take a little longer to internalize. I didn't even realize the brakes could snap like that. How do I prepare for the unknown? I think a better thing to take away is that even if things spiral out like this, it's always recoverable. It could take a few hours to get back on track, but at least I will get back on track, and I'll learn something out of it.
If you asked me before the ride "hey, do you want your brakes to snap and you learn how to fix them", I would say "hell no". If you asked me now "hey, do you want to have it so your brakes never snapped and you never learned how to fix them", I'd probably say "no" again, although I don't know how I'd handle the temptation. I think that's a really interesting comment on how we make choices: even if we know something is better for us in the long run, and we'll be glad it happened once its over, we'll still refuse to choose it.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
The Fallacy of the Self
Normally I hate meta posts, but I had a really good one I wanted to talk about. Last night I was trying to write on the idea of of intelligence. You know, what is intelligence actually, why our standard methods of measuring it are really lame, etc. I was stumped on actually defining intelligence, though. Now, I normally map out thoughts on my mirrors, using a whiteboard marker to scrawl ideas. Very quickly most of it was covered in bad analogies and failed ideas. In a fit of inspiration, I erased everything and wrote the following:
"Intelligence is the ability to see your specific knowledge as part of a whole. The most intelligent man in the world can watch a Shakespeare play and through that gain a deeper understanding of mathematics."
Looked about right to me. I admired the definition for a bit, and then in another fit of inspiration wrote the following under it:
"My perception of intelligence is contingent on my fallacies of thought, which are contingent on my desire for the world to have a certain form. I desire the world's form to be that the qualities I idolize are the ones that define intelligence. Therefore, my meditation was to validate my beliefs and not to develop them."
Which is a little troubling to say the least. Understatement of the month right there. I try to figure out what I should want, and I decide what I should want is what I already want. While I wrote it specifically about how to think about intelligence, it's actually a pretty general claim. Does being obsessed with self-improvement make it any more likely to happen, or is it just to convince myself that I don't have to change how I handle things? Let's take for example my post on sleep schedules. We have a specific thing I am trying to improve: better sleep. But does that make me a better person? Or do I just pretend it does it order to justify the energy sunk into it?
This may seem like a minor problem: does it matter why I do things if I do them anyway? Yes, for two reasons. First of all, I stopped the sleep schedule thing. I kept it in place for like a week before forgetting all about it. Maybe part of that was improper motives, the same way you're not going to study much if your only reason is "Mom said I should." So the second part of that question, "if I do them anyway", is a straw man. It does matter because I don't do them.
The second problem feels less important, but probably is significantly moreso. I have finite resources. I have to prioritize certain things over others. If I'm trying to justify changes over find them, then I'm prioritizing the "wrong" things. Like if I spent all my energy getting really good at badminton while ignoring my social ineptitude. That kind of thing. I once asked people for what I could do better and got some responses. Most of them I discounted as unimportant, unnecessary, or already had by me. Looking back, that was damn stupid of me. Really damn stupid.
This is what I'm calling The Fallacy of the Self. Existing in your own developmental world, what you should be doing and what you plan to do forever disconnected. It's an especially potent trap because introspection just gets you deeper- you're already in a state where you see your current path as the best path. Any option you take to escape the trap is coloured by the fact it was created while you were in the trap, which makes getting out a fairly difficult endeavor.
So how do we get out? The problem I run into is that, if this is true, anything I think of is going to be suspect. I want to say outside experience (as always) is the key, since it's the only way to leave your world. But is that really true, or do I just really want it to be true? I have no way of knowing that anything I say is going to be so horribly biased that it's useless or harmful.
Nonetheless, "I can't be sure I'm right, so I won't say anything" is a colossally stupid thing to say. So I'm sticking with my current solution: make sure you keep experiencing things and hope for the best. If any of you disagree, feel free to tear into me. Hell, even if you agree but want to disagree for the sake of it, do that too. If there's something out there that could change my mind, I want to know about it.
"Intelligence is the ability to see your specific knowledge as part of a whole. The most intelligent man in the world can watch a Shakespeare play and through that gain a deeper understanding of mathematics."
Looked about right to me. I admired the definition for a bit, and then in another fit of inspiration wrote the following under it:
"My perception of intelligence is contingent on my fallacies of thought, which are contingent on my desire for the world to have a certain form. I desire the world's form to be that the qualities I idolize are the ones that define intelligence. Therefore, my meditation was to validate my beliefs and not to develop them."
Which is a little troubling to say the least. Understatement of the month right there. I try to figure out what I should want, and I decide what I should want is what I already want. While I wrote it specifically about how to think about intelligence, it's actually a pretty general claim. Does being obsessed with self-improvement make it any more likely to happen, or is it just to convince myself that I don't have to change how I handle things? Let's take for example my post on sleep schedules. We have a specific thing I am trying to improve: better sleep. But does that make me a better person? Or do I just pretend it does it order to justify the energy sunk into it?
This may seem like a minor problem: does it matter why I do things if I do them anyway? Yes, for two reasons. First of all, I stopped the sleep schedule thing. I kept it in place for like a week before forgetting all about it. Maybe part of that was improper motives, the same way you're not going to study much if your only reason is "Mom said I should." So the second part of that question, "if I do them anyway", is a straw man. It does matter because I don't do them.
The second problem feels less important, but probably is significantly moreso. I have finite resources. I have to prioritize certain things over others. If I'm trying to justify changes over find them, then I'm prioritizing the "wrong" things. Like if I spent all my energy getting really good at badminton while ignoring my social ineptitude. That kind of thing. I once asked people for what I could do better and got some responses. Most of them I discounted as unimportant, unnecessary, or already had by me. Looking back, that was damn stupid of me. Really damn stupid.
This is what I'm calling The Fallacy of the Self. Existing in your own developmental world, what you should be doing and what you plan to do forever disconnected. It's an especially potent trap because introspection just gets you deeper- you're already in a state where you see your current path as the best path. Any option you take to escape the trap is coloured by the fact it was created while you were in the trap, which makes getting out a fairly difficult endeavor.
So how do we get out? The problem I run into is that, if this is true, anything I think of is going to be suspect. I want to say outside experience (as always) is the key, since it's the only way to leave your world. But is that really true, or do I just really want it to be true? I have no way of knowing that anything I say is going to be so horribly biased that it's useless or harmful.
Nonetheless, "I can't be sure I'm right, so I won't say anything" is a colossally stupid thing to say. So I'm sticking with my current solution: make sure you keep experiencing things and hope for the best. If any of you disagree, feel free to tear into me. Hell, even if you agree but want to disagree for the sake of it, do that too. If there's something out there that could change my mind, I want to know about it.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
On Internet Discussions
One of the things I've been trying to do with this blog is foster discussion. Unfortunately, that hasn't really happened. I know for a fact that most of my readers haven't told me they read it, and the ones who do rarely leave comments.
I'm not unhappy that this hasn't been happening, because I wasn't optimistic about its chances chances in the first place. For one, this blog is fairly personal. While I'm transitioning from "this is what I'm doing" to "These are the ideas I'm trying to adopt", everything is still said in the context of 'me'. I'm drawing really heavily on my own ideas, actions, and interactions for this, and I think it makes it trickier to talk about it generally.
I'm starting to think that the Internet is very bad at fostering discussion, though. Something about the combination of personal distance, unlimited time to think, and the expectation to write completely coherent thoughts kinda kills it. But what I'm really looking for isn't just talking about one topic. I also want a discussion that spirals into tangents and eventually ends miles away from where it started. Like 95% of my best ideas happen in these discussions. Hell, I've already mentioned that 'Reason' and 'Elitism' came about from arguments. I'd probably be updating this blog a hundred times more often if I wasn't so agreeable.
When I think of 'online discussion', the image I get is a forum. Remember those? Built around specific interests. You get a few categories, somebody posts a topic, and everything throws on responses. Because active topics are thrown to the top people keep talking about it and new people keep joining in. Eventually everybody gets bored and moves on to other topics people posted, because every topic expects people talking about it.
Nowadays they've mostly been replaced by facebook, which is a lot worse at doing this. Statuses aren't really the best place for talking about things for a number of reasons (which probably are the same in blogs). Notes make things a bit easier, but I don't think anybody uses notes anymore. The old groups could-sorta-get-this-a-bit-kinda. The new groups not so much.
I'd try making a forum to see if it provides what I want, but the chances of getting enough people to consistently use it is... 0. Other possibilities include saying lots of inflammatory things on this blog (angry people write more) and posting terrible things to Facebook. I don't think I can do either without being a terrible person, though.
That's where my brain runs out of thinky-juice. How can we foster more discussion online in the context of our current networks? Primarily facebook, email, and blogs. It might just be a cultural problem, where we don't use these things to discuss because we never have. But I still think none of them are well suited for it. Maybe there's something fancy you could do with google docs? Some way to cope with the new groups? There's no easy solution I see.
Oh hey, it's almost like we should talk it over!
I'm not unhappy that this hasn't been happening, because I wasn't optimistic about its chances chances in the first place. For one, this blog is fairly personal. While I'm transitioning from "this is what I'm doing" to "These are the ideas I'm trying to adopt", everything is still said in the context of 'me'. I'm drawing really heavily on my own ideas, actions, and interactions for this, and I think it makes it trickier to talk about it generally.
I'm starting to think that the Internet is very bad at fostering discussion, though. Something about the combination of personal distance, unlimited time to think, and the expectation to write completely coherent thoughts kinda kills it. But what I'm really looking for isn't just talking about one topic. I also want a discussion that spirals into tangents and eventually ends miles away from where it started. Like 95% of my best ideas happen in these discussions. Hell, I've already mentioned that 'Reason' and 'Elitism' came about from arguments. I'd probably be updating this blog a hundred times more often if I wasn't so agreeable.
When I think of 'online discussion', the image I get is a forum. Remember those? Built around specific interests. You get a few categories, somebody posts a topic, and everything throws on responses. Because active topics are thrown to the top people keep talking about it and new people keep joining in. Eventually everybody gets bored and moves on to other topics people posted, because every topic expects people talking about it.
Nowadays they've mostly been replaced by facebook, which is a lot worse at doing this. Statuses aren't really the best place for talking about things for a number of reasons (which probably are the same in blogs). Notes make things a bit easier, but I don't think anybody uses notes anymore. The old groups could-sorta-get-this-a-bit-kinda. The new groups not so much.
I'd try making a forum to see if it provides what I want, but the chances of getting enough people to consistently use it is... 0. Other possibilities include saying lots of inflammatory things on this blog (angry people write more) and posting terrible things to Facebook. I don't think I can do either without being a terrible person, though.
That's where my brain runs out of thinky-juice. How can we foster more discussion online in the context of our current networks? Primarily facebook, email, and blogs. It might just be a cultural problem, where we don't use these things to discuss because we never have. But I still think none of them are well suited for it. Maybe there's something fancy you could do with google docs? Some way to cope with the new groups? There's no easy solution I see.
Oh hey, it's almost like we should talk it over!
Monday, June 11, 2012
Unknown Unknowns
The school year is over. All of my fourth year friends have graduated. I saw a couple of them at the reception, but not many. I probably won't be seeing the rest of them again for a long time. Months, and in one person's case at least a year. The thing that bothers me is that I could have had a chance. A bunch of them were all doing a last dinner together. I could have said all of my goodbyes then rather than do it over the phone.
But I missed it. Because I had a train ticket home, and I couldn't miss the train. And I got the ticket before I found out about this dinner. If I'd have known I would have delayed my departure a day. As it is, I lost out on a very important thing to me.
When we do the 'wrong thing', sometimes it's because of a faulty judgment. But sometimes it's because we don't realize there are judgments we can make. How can you rationally choose between two options if you don't know you have the power to choose? How can you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of an action if you don't know you have to weigh them? This is why I missed the dinner. I didn't realize that they'd want a last dinner before they all parted ways. I would have stayed if I knew it was happening. Does that make me irrational for leaving? No, it's a sad reminder of how a lack of information can completely destroy our ability to make good decisions.
The rational solution to this is to ensure that you have all of the information. But the kind we are dealing with is not the known unknowns, when you are aware there are options but have yet to find them. These are the unknown unknowns. You could reason with yourself for a hundred years and never realize the options are there, simply because realizing you have gaps in your knowledge requires outside information that you do not have. But more likely you'll never reason with yourself in the first place, because you don't realize you should.
But what I think is a thousand times worse is the information that you do have, but that you don't remember is relevant. Three hours into the train ride I remembered that Amtrak doesn't have a surcharge for changing your departures dates. I could have gone to that dinner after all. But I didn't.
I can cry about unknown unknowns all I want, but that doesn't get me any closer to coping with it. And we have to find a way of coping with it, if only so we can make the "right" choice more often. Thankfully, though, this is the kind of problem that solves itself. Every time we get burned by the unknown unknowns they're no longer invisible. You know to watch out for them in the future.
This is another good reason why we should have as many experiences and encounters as possible. It makes it more likely that you'll be hit by an unknown unknown in a situation where it doesn't hurt you too badly, so you're aware of it when it's actually important to be aware. And it means that the situations come up way more often, so you more quickly learn to deal with a wide range of unknown unknowns.
Looking back, I think I know what to call the knowledge of unknown unknowns. It's wisdom.
But I missed it. Because I had a train ticket home, and I couldn't miss the train. And I got the ticket before I found out about this dinner. If I'd have known I would have delayed my departure a day. As it is, I lost out on a very important thing to me.
When we do the 'wrong thing', sometimes it's because of a faulty judgment. But sometimes it's because we don't realize there are judgments we can make. How can you rationally choose between two options if you don't know you have the power to choose? How can you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of an action if you don't know you have to weigh them? This is why I missed the dinner. I didn't realize that they'd want a last dinner before they all parted ways. I would have stayed if I knew it was happening. Does that make me irrational for leaving? No, it's a sad reminder of how a lack of information can completely destroy our ability to make good decisions.
The rational solution to this is to ensure that you have all of the information. But the kind we are dealing with is not the known unknowns, when you are aware there are options but have yet to find them. These are the unknown unknowns. You could reason with yourself for a hundred years and never realize the options are there, simply because realizing you have gaps in your knowledge requires outside information that you do not have. But more likely you'll never reason with yourself in the first place, because you don't realize you should.
But what I think is a thousand times worse is the information that you do have, but that you don't remember is relevant. Three hours into the train ride I remembered that Amtrak doesn't have a surcharge for changing your departures dates. I could have gone to that dinner after all. But I didn't.
I can cry about unknown unknowns all I want, but that doesn't get me any closer to coping with it. And we have to find a way of coping with it, if only so we can make the "right" choice more often. Thankfully, though, this is the kind of problem that solves itself. Every time we get burned by the unknown unknowns they're no longer invisible. You know to watch out for them in the future.
This is another good reason why we should have as many experiences and encounters as possible. It makes it more likely that you'll be hit by an unknown unknown in a situation where it doesn't hurt you too badly, so you're aware of it when it's actually important to be aware. And it means that the situations come up way more often, so you more quickly learn to deal with a wide range of unknown unknowns.
Looking back, I think I know what to call the knowledge of unknown unknowns. It's wisdom.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
People are People
I try to make an effort to keep in contact with people. Apparently this is a weird thing, because most of my friends don't do it. I also make an effort to get in contact with people I don't really talk to. This is also a weird thing. Most people I know are more interested in letting friendships happen to them. They don't go out of their way to find more friends.
I don't need to do this. I already have many friends that I enjoy spending with, and more than a few very close ones. I have several reasons for keeping at it, though. Of course there's the joy of having new friends. And part of it is an addiction thing: I get a huge rush from meeting new people. It gives me energy.
Less obviously, it lets me expand my areas of experience. The more people you know the wider a social network you have, meaning the more likely you are to find people that differ radically from you. When you just let friendship happen, eventually your group homogenizes. If not in terms of race, socioeconomic class, etc, it's mentally. I have a couple of friendship groups that I'm tangent to. Over time they hivemind a little. Modes of thought unify. Good for closeness, perhaps, but not for empowerment. If you keep introducing new friends into the mix, you always have highly novel relationships. You also have access to modes and worldviews that are normally blocked by your upbringing. I have friends who could buy my family. I find it very difficult to try thinking things from that kind of perspective, but I would have found it absolutely impossible two years ago.
What I find most interesting, though, is how it affects my perception of people. One of the most important rules I've learned for social interactions is "people are people". It's so obviously simple to think of, but hideously difficult to think. Imagine walking down on the street, and a car stops to let you pass. Do you realize that in that car is a person? One who has had just as many, if not more experiences than you have? Or do you think of that person solely as the driver of the car? I'd bet the latter.
You can't recognize everybody around you as being a full-fledged person, because then your brain would overload and you would die. There's a difference, though, between 'not recognizing everybody' and 'not recognizing anybody'. First is necessary. Second is a problem. People are not Chinese Boxes. They aren't automata responding precisely to your input. We only see them that way (unconsciously or not) because we don't interact with them on a deep enough level.
This is why I'm so obsessed with talking to people. It's the only way I know of learning how to see them as people.
I don't need to do this. I already have many friends that I enjoy spending with, and more than a few very close ones. I have several reasons for keeping at it, though. Of course there's the joy of having new friends. And part of it is an addiction thing: I get a huge rush from meeting new people. It gives me energy.
Less obviously, it lets me expand my areas of experience. The more people you know the wider a social network you have, meaning the more likely you are to find people that differ radically from you. When you just let friendship happen, eventually your group homogenizes. If not in terms of race, socioeconomic class, etc, it's mentally. I have a couple of friendship groups that I'm tangent to. Over time they hivemind a little. Modes of thought unify. Good for closeness, perhaps, but not for empowerment. If you keep introducing new friends into the mix, you always have highly novel relationships. You also have access to modes and worldviews that are normally blocked by your upbringing. I have friends who could buy my family. I find it very difficult to try thinking things from that kind of perspective, but I would have found it absolutely impossible two years ago.
What I find most interesting, though, is how it affects my perception of people. One of the most important rules I've learned for social interactions is "people are people". It's so obviously simple to think of, but hideously difficult to think. Imagine walking down on the street, and a car stops to let you pass. Do you realize that in that car is a person? One who has had just as many, if not more experiences than you have? Or do you think of that person solely as the driver of the car? I'd bet the latter.
You can't recognize everybody around you as being a full-fledged person, because then your brain would overload and you would die. There's a difference, though, between 'not recognizing everybody' and 'not recognizing anybody'. First is necessary. Second is a problem. People are not Chinese Boxes. They aren't automata responding precisely to your input. We only see them that way (unconsciously or not) because we don't interact with them on a deep enough level.
This is why I'm so obsessed with talking to people. It's the only way I know of learning how to see them as people.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Dynamic
Preliminary: post-once-per-day ended up being a fairly bad idea, since I don't actually have content for more than one post a week.
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In On Ideas and The Fallacy of Reason I talked about how important dialog is. We are limited by ourselves and the only way to break that limit is to try stepping outside. The key to that lies in social interaction, which lets us see both the world and ourselves from another perspective. In False Promises I said that my ability to change is limited by who I am. How do I break past that?
I've always thought it's important to study topics outside your professional field, and even outside your interests. That's a way of opening new modes of thought. One thing that's hit me recently is the importance of interchangeability in thinking. A teacher I greatly admire once said that you could think of skills as a form of knowledge- the knowledge-how instead of the knowledge-of. The inverse of this is we can see knowledge as a form of skill- the ability to aggregate and process information. The skill of operating on what you know to figure out what you don't.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that other mental constructs are also interchangeable. Of course, the two I'm most interested in are worldviews and improvements. Let's say they are the same thing. Improvement is the act of moving into new worldviews that better suit you. For example, patience is simply the realization that waiting is good. On the flip side, worldviews reflect your state of being, and changing worldviews requires a change in state.
Okay, let's assume we can establish isomorphism. Cool trick. Now what? Well, We have this incredibly powerful tool for modifying worldviews. It or a modification of it should be equally powerful for fueling growth. Not only that, but it'd also be the most powerful tool, just like it is for beliefs. There can be other methods, but they'd pale in comparison.
If improvement is primarily triggered by external events, then we cannot barrel into it with sheer willpower. But just because an event is external does not mean it is random. Any force outside you can cause it. So if there was a way of making external events cause it, that would be the most powerful tool for growth.
So improvement <-> worldviews, external events <-> talkin' with people. What I'm trying to say here is that we need our friends to help us grow.
The idea of having friends contribute to your changes has been bouncing around my head for a long time, and I think it's a pretty trivial idea. The new bit is that I'm starting to think that it's not just helpful, it's required. Nothing else in your arsenal can match the power of the social network. And if properly harnessed, the network can cause profound levels of development. At will.
Okay, maybe not at will. But much more often than you'd get if you didn't tap it.
The term 'dynamic' springs to mind. Whenever I think about this, it just feels right. The social network is the frame on which we build dynamics, connections designed to cause growth. It isn't dependent of other connections. We can have friendships without the dynamic, and dynamics without friendship. Even so, I imagine that maintaining a strong dynamic without friendship would be incredibly difficult.
This provides a huge launching point. We can beat stagnation and inaction through proper use of the dynamic. Unfortunately, just the outline is there. There's a topic in mathematics called Generalized Abstract Nonsense, which is the art of using objects in proofs without knowing their properties. I'm arguing that dynamics are essential to growth. Hooray. This doesn't tell us how to use them, or even what makes them so much more powerful than anything else. In order to properly harness dynamics we'd probably have to work out those bits.
Even so, I'm confident about this. Even if the interchangeability breaks down, the worst it could do is refute the idea that dynamics are the most powerful tool. I don't think you'd have any trouble establishing their usefulness without using mathemagics.
---
In On Ideas and The Fallacy of Reason I talked about how important dialog is. We are limited by ourselves and the only way to break that limit is to try stepping outside. The key to that lies in social interaction, which lets us see both the world and ourselves from another perspective. In False Promises I said that my ability to change is limited by who I am. How do I break past that?
I've always thought it's important to study topics outside your professional field, and even outside your interests. That's a way of opening new modes of thought. One thing that's hit me recently is the importance of interchangeability in thinking. A teacher I greatly admire once said that you could think of skills as a form of knowledge- the knowledge-how instead of the knowledge-of. The inverse of this is we can see knowledge as a form of skill- the ability to aggregate and process information. The skill of operating on what you know to figure out what you don't.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that other mental constructs are also interchangeable. Of course, the two I'm most interested in are worldviews and improvements. Let's say they are the same thing. Improvement is the act of moving into new worldviews that better suit you. For example, patience is simply the realization that waiting is good. On the flip side, worldviews reflect your state of being, and changing worldviews requires a change in state.
Okay, let's assume we can establish isomorphism. Cool trick. Now what? Well, We have this incredibly powerful tool for modifying worldviews. It or a modification of it should be equally powerful for fueling growth. Not only that, but it'd also be the most powerful tool, just like it is for beliefs. There can be other methods, but they'd pale in comparison.
If improvement is primarily triggered by external events, then we cannot barrel into it with sheer willpower. But just because an event is external does not mean it is random. Any force outside you can cause it. So if there was a way of making external events cause it, that would be the most powerful tool for growth.
So improvement <-> worldviews, external events <-> talkin' with people. What I'm trying to say here is that we need our friends to help us grow.
The idea of having friends contribute to your changes has been bouncing around my head for a long time, and I think it's a pretty trivial idea. The new bit is that I'm starting to think that it's not just helpful, it's required. Nothing else in your arsenal can match the power of the social network. And if properly harnessed, the network can cause profound levels of development. At will.
Okay, maybe not at will. But much more often than you'd get if you didn't tap it.
The term 'dynamic' springs to mind. Whenever I think about this, it just feels right. The social network is the frame on which we build dynamics, connections designed to cause growth. It isn't dependent of other connections. We can have friendships without the dynamic, and dynamics without friendship. Even so, I imagine that maintaining a strong dynamic without friendship would be incredibly difficult.
This provides a huge launching point. We can beat stagnation and inaction through proper use of the dynamic. Unfortunately, just the outline is there. There's a topic in mathematics called Generalized Abstract Nonsense, which is the art of using objects in proofs without knowing their properties. I'm arguing that dynamics are essential to growth. Hooray. This doesn't tell us how to use them, or even what makes them so much more powerful than anything else. In order to properly harness dynamics we'd probably have to work out those bits.
Even so, I'm confident about this. Even if the interchangeability breaks down, the worst it could do is refute the idea that dynamics are the most powerful tool. I don't think you'd have any trouble establishing their usefulness without using mathemagics.
Monday, May 7, 2012
On Ideas
Missed two days of the groove, and I think the post I did last Friday on The Other Blog doesn't really count. I feel like I should punish myself somehow. Or I could stop being a baby about this and get back on the run. Let's do the latter!
If there's one thing I'm paranoid about this blog, it's coming across as an arrogant jerk. If there's a second thing (and there is), it's saying inane things. I want(ed) this blog to be a way of codifying and tempering my ideas on change, not a way of parroting pointless platitudes. Yes, it might be important to think outside the box. Everybody knows this. If I wanted to talk about using lateral thinking as a means of empowerment, I'd need to try to find something new and interesting to say about it. Otherwise I could replaced by a monkey copying over random pages from "Six easy steps to a better you" and nobody would notice a thing.
On the other hand, thinking of new and innovative things to say is hard. The good ones are already taken. The bad ones are also already taken. Trying to come up with a new things to say is a brutally difficult skill to develop. I dearly hope that someday I'll be good enough to come up with innovative ideas whenever I need to. Sort of a pipe dream. Until then, I have to hope that I can force whatever ideas I do have into something remotely interesting. That's another important skill to have, but it comes a little easier than the first one.
Or I could think outside the box!!!
My two mosts successful posts were The Fallacy of Reason and On Elitism. Other posts of mine got more hits, but those were the ones that got the most responses. They were the ones that sparked the most interesting discussions. They were also the two pieces that I wrote in response to other people. In both cases somebody said something that horrified me and I vomited a stream of words to get the taste out of my brain. I dunno if this is dependent on hating the other person's position. Maybe it's really just the feeling that my ideas are directly relevant to a person (despite neither person reading this blog). But maybe it's because I think faster when I feel threatened. Having good ideas is a way of fighting back (despite neither person reading this blog).
I think it also has to some extent be personal. The discussion has to involve you, or the attack must threaten you. The only revelation I had from Atlas Shrugged was "Rand is a blithering idiot". But throw an individual into the mix and it gets more fun. The person is addressing you, and you have a responsibility to respond.
I'm already seeing this as incredibly inane. "Talk to people!" Yeah, that's new. The extra tacked on bit is "Talk to people you vehemently disagree with!" I think as long as you can enter a discussion knowing "I will vehemently disagree with them and probably feel threatened" it should be okay.
If there's one thing I'm paranoid about this blog, it's coming across as an arrogant jerk. If there's a second thing (and there is), it's saying inane things. I want(ed) this blog to be a way of codifying and tempering my ideas on change, not a way of parroting pointless platitudes. Yes, it might be important to think outside the box. Everybody knows this. If I wanted to talk about using lateral thinking as a means of empowerment, I'd need to try to find something new and interesting to say about it. Otherwise I could replaced by a monkey copying over random pages from "Six easy steps to a better you" and nobody would notice a thing.
On the other hand, thinking of new and innovative things to say is hard. The good ones are already taken. The bad ones are also already taken. Trying to come up with a new things to say is a brutally difficult skill to develop. I dearly hope that someday I'll be good enough to come up with innovative ideas whenever I need to. Sort of a pipe dream. Until then, I have to hope that I can force whatever ideas I do have into something remotely interesting. That's another important skill to have, but it comes a little easier than the first one.
Or I could think outside the box!!!
My two mosts successful posts were The Fallacy of Reason and On Elitism. Other posts of mine got more hits, but those were the ones that got the most responses. They were the ones that sparked the most interesting discussions. They were also the two pieces that I wrote in response to other people. In both cases somebody said something that horrified me and I vomited a stream of words to get the taste out of my brain. I dunno if this is dependent on hating the other person's position. Maybe it's really just the feeling that my ideas are directly relevant to a person (despite neither person reading this blog). But maybe it's because I think faster when I feel threatened. Having good ideas is a way of fighting back (despite neither person reading this blog).
I think it also has to some extent be personal. The discussion has to involve you, or the attack must threaten you. The only revelation I had from Atlas Shrugged was "Rand is a blithering idiot". But throw an individual into the mix and it gets more fun. The person is addressing you, and you have a responsibility to respond.
I'm already seeing this as incredibly inane. "Talk to people!" Yeah, that's new. The extra tacked on bit is "Talk to people you vehemently disagree with!" I think as long as you can enter a discussion knowing "I will vehemently disagree with them and probably feel threatened" it should be okay.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
The Fallacy of Reason
Last night I had an argument with a friend about a thing. Since this was online I will probably be having this argument with them tomorrow too. Over the course of this argument I brought up something from my personal life. Her response was (paraphrased) "I want to talk about arguments, not personal feelings."
On the surface this seems reasonable. We are always told that anecdotes have no place in evidence. If a study shows that punching chickens does not cure cancer and I tell about how aunt Martha punched a chicken and cured her leukemia, I'm being a terrible debater. I think this has been taken too far, though. Anecdotes have been entirely shut out in favor of "reason". But are these enriched by the lack of experience? I'd say no. It's the opposite.
As much as we hate to admit it, reason is a subjective thing. We find evidence to suit beliefs, not the other way around. We put too much power on our invisible assumptions, and too little on what we profess we believe. Let me take an obvious example:
"The presidency requires being always available and able to give your all. Women can have children and need maternity leave. So women should not be president."
Sounds silly, right? Replace 'president' with leader and you get something from Rousseau. He was a hell of a lot smarter than I was and way better at using his reason. So why does he say something so stupid? He's operating under the prevailing assumption of the time that men > women. His argument perfectly fits in with his beliefs so he does not try at all to examine it for flaws.
Are we any better? Our 'reason' is built on axioms, and those axioms didn't come from the brain wizards. It's shaped by your world. Where you grew up. The people you talk to. What you want to believe. It's why every 14 year old can so obviously see how everything works and you just don't get it. His world is so limited that nothing challenges his core beliefs. He may use great reason, but that's like building your house out of the best cardboard around. It's still made of cardboard. Everybody's been there. I have. So have you.
It's only we grow a little older and actually get some experience in the world that we stop thinking we know all of the answers. The experience is what should shake our core beliefs. Think communism will make everything just peachy? You see how people backstab each other if we can get away from it. Or maybe Objectivism is the One True Path! Oh wait, the poor people are poor because they're in terrible nightmares, not because they're lazy bums. Religious people are deluded sheeple! If you can get through this university and still believe that, then I applaud your willful ignorance.
That's why I bring up personal experience. I can't make you live my life. I can't force you to grow up in a very religious community, or struggle with mental illness, or have to learn humor like a new language. But by god I can let you know what it's like. It's a tiny glimpse into a different world, and maybe, just maybe, you'll see that your core beliefs aren't the unshakable tenets of reality. Just as mine aren't. No one's is. But if we think that trying to understand each other's personal experiences is an affront to some nebulous 'reason', we're not going to get anywhere. We'll just logic ourselves in our tiny bubbles and pretend that if people don't agree with us they're not being 'intellectual'. That's as far from reason as you can possibly get.
On the surface this seems reasonable. We are always told that anecdotes have no place in evidence. If a study shows that punching chickens does not cure cancer and I tell about how aunt Martha punched a chicken and cured her leukemia, I'm being a terrible debater. I think this has been taken too far, though. Anecdotes have been entirely shut out in favor of "reason". But are these enriched by the lack of experience? I'd say no. It's the opposite.
As much as we hate to admit it, reason is a subjective thing. We find evidence to suit beliefs, not the other way around. We put too much power on our invisible assumptions, and too little on what we profess we believe. Let me take an obvious example:
"The presidency requires being always available and able to give your all. Women can have children and need maternity leave. So women should not be president."
Sounds silly, right? Replace 'president' with leader and you get something from Rousseau. He was a hell of a lot smarter than I was and way better at using his reason. So why does he say something so stupid? He's operating under the prevailing assumption of the time that men > women. His argument perfectly fits in with his beliefs so he does not try at all to examine it for flaws.
Are we any better? Our 'reason' is built on axioms, and those axioms didn't come from the brain wizards. It's shaped by your world. Where you grew up. The people you talk to. What you want to believe. It's why every 14 year old can so obviously see how everything works and you just don't get it. His world is so limited that nothing challenges his core beliefs. He may use great reason, but that's like building your house out of the best cardboard around. It's still made of cardboard. Everybody's been there. I have. So have you.
It's only we grow a little older and actually get some experience in the world that we stop thinking we know all of the answers. The experience is what should shake our core beliefs. Think communism will make everything just peachy? You see how people backstab each other if we can get away from it. Or maybe Objectivism is the One True Path! Oh wait, the poor people are poor because they're in terrible nightmares, not because they're lazy bums. Religious people are deluded sheeple! If you can get through this university and still believe that, then I applaud your willful ignorance.
That's why I bring up personal experience. I can't make you live my life. I can't force you to grow up in a very religious community, or struggle with mental illness, or have to learn humor like a new language. But by god I can let you know what it's like. It's a tiny glimpse into a different world, and maybe, just maybe, you'll see that your core beliefs aren't the unshakable tenets of reality. Just as mine aren't. No one's is. But if we think that trying to understand each other's personal experiences is an affront to some nebulous 'reason', we're not going to get anywhere. We'll just logic ourselves in our tiny bubbles and pretend that if people don't agree with us they're not being 'intellectual'. That's as far from reason as you can possibly get.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Internal and External Changes
I've noticed a strange pattern with this blog. The majority of my posts are about improving my ability to do something. Sleep better, keep on projects, maintain momentum, etc. In my head, though, these aren't 'real' improvements. To me, improvements change the state of who I am. Improved me is more patient, more controlled, more able to stand up for himself, etc. But that isn't what I'm working towards. I'm working towards the external changes.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. External changes are just as important as the internal ones if you want to get anywhere. But to leave the internal changes off entirely? No. Terrible idea.
The problem is it's easier to make external changes than internal ones. If I want to be better at balancing my budgets, all I need to do is set up a system and stick with it. If I want to be braver... how the hell do I do that? Changes in personality come from challenges. That isn't something you start at will.
But it's still vital to do them. It's just a matter of figuring out how.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. External changes are just as important as the internal ones if you want to get anywhere. But to leave the internal changes off entirely? No. Terrible idea.
The problem is it's easier to make external changes than internal ones. If I want to be better at balancing my budgets, all I need to do is set up a system and stick with it. If I want to be braver... how the hell do I do that? Changes in personality come from challenges. That isn't something you start at will.
But it's still vital to do them. It's just a matter of figuring out how.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
The Problem with Weekly Tasks
There are a couple of things I want to do at least once a week. There are a couple of things other people want to do once a week. We all never do them. Goals I plan once a day are fine. But if it's less than that, even if it's a less demanding responsibility, it never happens. I think the problem lies in the amount of leeway I'm giving myself. If I can do something any day, and I don't feel like doing it today, I'll say "eh, tomorrow". And then tomorrow I'll say "eh, tomorrow" again. Repeat as necessary. When the week is past I've sort of forgotten when the deadline was, and even if I remember think it can be fuzzy (since I'm already up against the well). Then it becomes "eh, I'll do it next week for sure" and the process repeats.
This isn't a problem if I do something every day, because then I, well, have to do it every day. This makes the solution set simple:
A) Make things happen daily. I have to update the blog every day, for example.
B) Make things happen on specific days. I have to update the blog every Wednesday. I can update before then, but I still have to update on Wednesday.
C) Build a dynamic. Yes, I know this is the obvious solution. Still.
I'm gonna try A for a bit, although I'm adding the caveat I can also update The Other Blog.
This isn't a problem if I do something every day, because then I, well, have to do it every day. This makes the solution set simple:
A) Make things happen daily. I have to update the blog every day, for example.
B) Make things happen on specific days. I have to update the blog every Wednesday. I can update before then, but I still have to update on Wednesday.
C) Build a dynamic. Yes, I know this is the obvious solution. Still.
I'm gonna try A for a bit, although I'm adding the caveat I can also update The Other Blog.
Monday, April 23, 2012
False Promises
Last night I reread this entire blog, noting the projects I said I started. Millennium Goals. The Workbank. A more rigorous sleep schedule. Wordsmashing on the other blog. All of them gone, abandoned a couple of weeks after they started. I think I heard this problem on the edge of my vision. More recently I've begun projects but not talked about them, because I was afraid of publicizing a thing that was bound to fail. I promised I would update this blog at least once a week. My last post was almost a month ago. I don't keep my promises.
I've thought back to all my previous, long dead ideas. The Lightbulb Project. Dinner with Strangers. Foodmapping. Who knows how many writing projects. Exercise. None of these are part of my life anymore. I still find some of them exciting or important. That doesn't matter. It seems that if something has to last more than a couple of days or so, I abandon it. If I had to point to my biggest flaw, it's probably this. I can't keep interested in things. Even when I know the rewards far outway the costs.
This is as close as you can get to stasis. How am I supposed to change when I can't stay changed for even a week? True change is supposed to affect the rest of your life. I can't cause it. It just happens to me. I'm standing still and don't know how to move.
I've tried a hundred different tricks to keep motivated. They work for a bit but I drop them too. The problem feeds into it itself. It is unsolvable because I need it solved to solve it. Catch-22.
Of course it's not truly unsolvable. It's just that at this time in this place my methods of fighting it have miserably failed. Maybe I need new methods. Maybe I'm thinking about it in the entirely wrong way. Maybe I can't beat it on my own and need outside help to deal. Maybe it really is unfixable. Refusing to think that as it's unproductive.
I think the problem boils down to the following: it's not about keeping motivated in a particular project, it's becoming a type of person who can stay motivated in general. Right now I think my problem has little to do with losing interest and much more to do with losing steam. Thing is, I have no idea how to change that. There's gotta be some way to throw yourself off center such that for a drop of time the rules don't apply to a small part of you. That's the window.
I started this blog to make my projects public so I could be held accountable if they failed. That didn't work. I think it quickly morphed from "here's what to harass me about" to "lookit me im improving!" and "listen to my opiiiniiiiiiooooonnnnnns". Someone rightfully pointed out that to some extent I was more interested in appearing to change than actually changing. "The guy obsessed with self improvement." Well, I have to recognize that this is true. I also have to recognize that some of my problems are the type which I can't deal with privately. Between contributing to a public image I hate and not getting this problem into the open, I should choose the former. Better be seen as arrogant and be dynamic than be seen as normal and be static.
So yeah. Proposed problem: how do I change from being a person who can't keep motivated on {arbitrary issue} to one who can? And how do I ensure that I actually follow through on this? I want to hear your thoughts.
I've thought back to all my previous, long dead ideas. The Lightbulb Project. Dinner with Strangers. Foodmapping. Who knows how many writing projects. Exercise. None of these are part of my life anymore. I still find some of them exciting or important. That doesn't matter. It seems that if something has to last more than a couple of days or so, I abandon it. If I had to point to my biggest flaw, it's probably this. I can't keep interested in things. Even when I know the rewards far outway the costs.
This is as close as you can get to stasis. How am I supposed to change when I can't stay changed for even a week? True change is supposed to affect the rest of your life. I can't cause it. It just happens to me. I'm standing still and don't know how to move.
I've tried a hundred different tricks to keep motivated. They work for a bit but I drop them too. The problem feeds into it itself. It is unsolvable because I need it solved to solve it. Catch-22.
Of course it's not truly unsolvable. It's just that at this time in this place my methods of fighting it have miserably failed. Maybe I need new methods. Maybe I'm thinking about it in the entirely wrong way. Maybe I can't beat it on my own and need outside help to deal. Maybe it really is unfixable. Refusing to think that as it's unproductive.
I think the problem boils down to the following: it's not about keeping motivated in a particular project, it's becoming a type of person who can stay motivated in general. Right now I think my problem has little to do with losing interest and much more to do with losing steam. Thing is, I have no idea how to change that. There's gotta be some way to throw yourself off center such that for a drop of time the rules don't apply to a small part of you. That's the window.
I started this blog to make my projects public so I could be held accountable if they failed. That didn't work. I think it quickly morphed from "here's what to harass me about" to "lookit me im improving!" and "listen to my opiiiniiiiiiooooonnnnnns". Someone rightfully pointed out that to some extent I was more interested in appearing to change than actually changing. "The guy obsessed with self improvement." Well, I have to recognize that this is true. I also have to recognize that some of my problems are the type which I can't deal with privately. Between contributing to a public image I hate and not getting this problem into the open, I should choose the former. Better be seen as arrogant and be dynamic than be seen as normal and be static.
So yeah. Proposed problem: how do I change from being a person who can't keep motivated on {arbitrary issue} to one who can? And how do I ensure that I actually follow through on this? I want to hear your thoughts.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Modes of Thought
I want to try writing in a different way.
I sometimes feel limited and trapped, a 10 foot person in a 6 foot body. There's an outward pressure on my skin, threatening to explode and throw everything out. This body is a Matroshka doll, a second self inside the first self and all the way down. If we strip away everything that makes me me, all that would happen is that we would find a Me again.
It's an outcropping of intense restlessness, but forming an energy that can't be physically used. I'm trying to channel it mentally now and see if I can let some of it out, push that illusory self into bits of words and see myself from another place of myself.
Often I'm struck by a surreality about myself. I interact with the world in strange ways. I mean, I walk around campus handing out homemade candy. Why? Because. The thing is I cannot imagine anybody else doing this. If somebody walked up to me and said "here, have a caramel", I would honestly not know what to do. Which is odd, because that person is an aspect of me. I am not capable of seeing myself when that self is in another.
And that extends the other way, too. I cannot see another person seeing me. I can self-reflect but not throw that reflection into a mirror. Maybe it's another consequence of a malfunctioning brain. An unpleasant consequence is it is very hard to anticipate how people will react to me. So I just go with the flow.
This limitation of my self-awareness fascinates me. I cannot completely understand myself. I need someone else to tell me who I am. I once asked people what I could do better, and some of the answers were things I could not anticipate. In my head I see it as a hall of mirrors, seeing myself reflected in a thousand different ways and a thousand different colors. Did you know that if you juggle that kind of place, you can see what it looks like from behind you?
I've tried to think like other people. Not just "ask myself how would XYZ think", but try to think those same thoughts as if they were my own. It's hard. It's really damn hard. And even with people I am very close to, I can barely do it. Even then, it will be completely wrong. I am lightning in the shape of a human, casting the world in blue. Can I say that this is how I think, but everybody else is a Chinese Box?
Hell no.
Our individuality cuts us off from entire modes of thoughts, our minds collapse knowledge into three dimensions. Even when we try to act with perfect rationality we still are limited by our ignorance. And worse, we are limited by the unknown irrationalities, the things we don't know we don't know. Then again, maybe rationality itself is just another way of dealing with the world, one that easily gets us what we want. Or what we think we want. But not the only valid way. I've occasionally wondered if you could use irrationality as a epistemic superweapon. Rationality is so slow.
This is yet another reason why Rand is an idiot. We cannot be Objectivist unless we are also completely objective, and objectivity is impossible. You cannot exist without a mode of thought. It may constrain you, but it also gives you the power to act and think. I guess it's less collapsing potential and more as creating a tiny bubble in potential.
Even so, it's still a bubble, and bubbles have walls. We are used to thinking in certain ways and may not see clear ideas from other ways. The easiest way to think outside of the box is to think in another box. This is why it helps to know multiple academic fields. If you can move between the each field's mode, you can more easily solve individual problems in those fields.
More importantly, it means that we're always dependent on others for their own modes. Two mathematicians may be able to see the world mathematically, but they will see it in slightly different ways. And they will see in radically different ways. Of course this is tautological, only an idiot would say that teamwork was useless. Two people can come up with ideas that just one person would not. I wonder if it's in part because their sets of modes combine to produce entirely new modes of thought.
I've always wondered where the restlessness comes from, the restlessness that makes me want to explode. I think it might in part be from limitations in how I can think. I am human, so I am limited. If I want to make the restlessness bearable, I have to interact more with others, and interact in ways that would expand my own self. I also need to explore other ways of thinking.
And there are the unknown unknowns, always out there, affecting us in ways we can't comprehend. Maybe that's what we should care about. That's the scariest thing of all. It's not that we don't know what's most important. It's that we haven't yet considered it as a thing we could know.
The restlessness is back. Or maybe it never left. I feel like I'm on the verge of catching fire, burning without heat, pain, or harm. There are ways of thinking out there that not only would benefit me, but would completely change me. What are they? Where are they?
I sometimes feel limited and trapped, a 10 foot person in a 6 foot body. There's an outward pressure on my skin, threatening to explode and throw everything out. This body is a Matroshka doll, a second self inside the first self and all the way down. If we strip away everything that makes me me, all that would happen is that we would find a Me again.
It's an outcropping of intense restlessness, but forming an energy that can't be physically used. I'm trying to channel it mentally now and see if I can let some of it out, push that illusory self into bits of words and see myself from another place of myself.
Often I'm struck by a surreality about myself. I interact with the world in strange ways. I mean, I walk around campus handing out homemade candy. Why? Because. The thing is I cannot imagine anybody else doing this. If somebody walked up to me and said "here, have a caramel", I would honestly not know what to do. Which is odd, because that person is an aspect of me. I am not capable of seeing myself when that self is in another.
And that extends the other way, too. I cannot see another person seeing me. I can self-reflect but not throw that reflection into a mirror. Maybe it's another consequence of a malfunctioning brain. An unpleasant consequence is it is very hard to anticipate how people will react to me. So I just go with the flow.
This limitation of my self-awareness fascinates me. I cannot completely understand myself. I need someone else to tell me who I am. I once asked people what I could do better, and some of the answers were things I could not anticipate. In my head I see it as a hall of mirrors, seeing myself reflected in a thousand different ways and a thousand different colors. Did you know that if you juggle that kind of place, you can see what it looks like from behind you?
I've tried to think like other people. Not just "ask myself how would XYZ think", but try to think those same thoughts as if they were my own. It's hard. It's really damn hard. And even with people I am very close to, I can barely do it. Even then, it will be completely wrong. I am lightning in the shape of a human, casting the world in blue. Can I say that this is how I think, but everybody else is a Chinese Box?
Hell no.
Our individuality cuts us off from entire modes of thoughts, our minds collapse knowledge into three dimensions. Even when we try to act with perfect rationality we still are limited by our ignorance. And worse, we are limited by the unknown irrationalities, the things we don't know we don't know. Then again, maybe rationality itself is just another way of dealing with the world, one that easily gets us what we want. Or what we think we want. But not the only valid way. I've occasionally wondered if you could use irrationality as a epistemic superweapon. Rationality is so slow.
This is yet another reason why Rand is an idiot. We cannot be Objectivist unless we are also completely objective, and objectivity is impossible. You cannot exist without a mode of thought. It may constrain you, but it also gives you the power to act and think. I guess it's less collapsing potential and more as creating a tiny bubble in potential.
Even so, it's still a bubble, and bubbles have walls. We are used to thinking in certain ways and may not see clear ideas from other ways. The easiest way to think outside of the box is to think in another box. This is why it helps to know multiple academic fields. If you can move between the each field's mode, you can more easily solve individual problems in those fields.
More importantly, it means that we're always dependent on others for their own modes. Two mathematicians may be able to see the world mathematically, but they will see it in slightly different ways. And they will see in radically different ways. Of course this is tautological, only an idiot would say that teamwork was useless. Two people can come up with ideas that just one person would not. I wonder if it's in part because their sets of modes combine to produce entirely new modes of thought.
I've always wondered where the restlessness comes from, the restlessness that makes me want to explode. I think it might in part be from limitations in how I can think. I am human, so I am limited. If I want to make the restlessness bearable, I have to interact more with others, and interact in ways that would expand my own self. I also need to explore other ways of thinking.
And there are the unknown unknowns, always out there, affecting us in ways we can't comprehend. Maybe that's what we should care about. That's the scariest thing of all. It's not that we don't know what's most important. It's that we haven't yet considered it as a thing we could know.
The restlessness is back. Or maybe it never left. I feel like I'm on the verge of catching fire, burning without heat, pain, or harm. There are ways of thinking out there that not only would benefit me, but would completely change me. What are they? Where are they?
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The External Self
The other day I was talking with a friend about something private. At one point I critiqued some of his actions, saying he was acting callous. His response was "I may act callous, but I'm not callous on the inside. That's what matters." If people can't see what he's really like on the inside, then they're badwrong. He can discard them.
It's a troubling thing to hear, especially because I realize I do it myself. One of my biggest fears is being an arrogant person. I obsess over being modest and not arrogant. I also think that if people do think I'm arrogant, then they're mistaken, because I work so hard to not be arrogant that I know I'm not. They're just seeing a face, an external part of me that doesn't reflect who I truly am.
The problem with thinking this way is that you're dropping a wall between how you think and how you act. Just because something is part of the external self does not mean it has no impact on you. It's still an external self. If you present yourself in a certain way, you can't say that it's not how you actually are. Even if it wasn't, you're acting in that form. That's going to bleed into your 'actual' self.
This is especially true since we are fallible people. Just because we think we are a certain way does not mean we are that way. There are aspects of us we are blind to, willfully or not. We have to listen to other people, and hope that they can see the things we can't.
So a question. If I think I'm not arrogant, but a lot of people say I act arrogant, am I arrogant or not?
Yes. Yes I am.
This sucks.
It's a troubling thing to hear, especially because I realize I do it myself. One of my biggest fears is being an arrogant person. I obsess over being modest and not arrogant. I also think that if people do think I'm arrogant, then they're mistaken, because I work so hard to not be arrogant that I know I'm not. They're just seeing a face, an external part of me that doesn't reflect who I truly am.
The problem with thinking this way is that you're dropping a wall between how you think and how you act. Just because something is part of the external self does not mean it has no impact on you. It's still an external self. If you present yourself in a certain way, you can't say that it's not how you actually are. Even if it wasn't, you're acting in that form. That's going to bleed into your 'actual' self.
This is especially true since we are fallible people. Just because we think we are a certain way does not mean we are that way. There are aspects of us we are blind to, willfully or not. We have to listen to other people, and hope that they can see the things we can't.
So a question. If I think I'm not arrogant, but a lot of people say I act arrogant, am I arrogant or not?
Yes. Yes I am.
This sucks.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Sleep Schedule
I'm a night person. My normal sleeping schedule is 1:30-9:30, later on weekends. So basically, an average student. This is not something I'm overly fond of. Yeah, it might be natural for me, but so having no hand-eye coordination. If I can learn to juggle, I can change my sleep schedule.
I'm generally a lot happier with a 11-7 schedule. This isn't just a "life would be better if I was a lark" wishful thinking. There have been several month spans where I'd force myself wake up at 7 every weekday. The rush I get from being up early is incredible. There was even a month where I did 6, out every day before the sun was up. It felt like stepping out into a barren world and watching it come alive. I'm just a lot happier on days when I wake up early. On the flip side, if I get up past 10 I just feel miserable. It's like the whole day is wasted.
There are a couple of big disadvantages to an early schedule. One, I'm shifting two of my awake hours to when nobody is up, or at least socializing. I'm taking a small hit to my social life. Then again, I'm usually in the apt at that time so I'm only affecting my fb and roommate interactions. I'm not particularly worried about either of those. The other issue is that I'll have to get better at completing assignments. When you stay up late, you can trade sleep for homework time. But if you go to bed early, you have no idea when to wake up to have adequate working time and can botch an assignment that way. This means I'll have to get better at doing assignments in advance and managing my time well. Horror of horrors.
The bonuses are huge and the problems easily resolvable. So why don't I do this all the time? Like I said, my body naturally does a late-night schedule. It's also a lot easier to go to bed late- it's only a matter of procrastinating sleeping. Sleeping early requires a lot more dedication and willpower. I've only recently tried to pick it back, and have consistently woken up at 7 for the past week. I stopped it during the weekends because everything interesting happens in the evening and night.
I'm going to try to keep this up at least until Spring break. I've never kept up an early bird schedule during vacation. I think that would be nice to try. It's just a lot harder when you don't have obligations during the day. Even if I stumble over vacation I'll attempt to pick it back up again for the new quarter and run with it until finals. It seems like it'd be really nice to do during the Spring. I'd get an extra two hours of warm daylight.
I'm generally a lot happier with a 11-7 schedule. This isn't just a "life would be better if I was a lark" wishful thinking. There have been several month spans where I'd force myself wake up at 7 every weekday. The rush I get from being up early is incredible. There was even a month where I did 6, out every day before the sun was up. It felt like stepping out into a barren world and watching it come alive. I'm just a lot happier on days when I wake up early. On the flip side, if I get up past 10 I just feel miserable. It's like the whole day is wasted.
There are a couple of big disadvantages to an early schedule. One, I'm shifting two of my awake hours to when nobody is up, or at least socializing. I'm taking a small hit to my social life. Then again, I'm usually in the apt at that time so I'm only affecting my fb and roommate interactions. I'm not particularly worried about either of those. The other issue is that I'll have to get better at completing assignments. When you stay up late, you can trade sleep for homework time. But if you go to bed early, you have no idea when to wake up to have adequate working time and can botch an assignment that way. This means I'll have to get better at doing assignments in advance and managing my time well. Horror of horrors.
The bonuses are huge and the problems easily resolvable. So why don't I do this all the time? Like I said, my body naturally does a late-night schedule. It's also a lot easier to go to bed late- it's only a matter of procrastinating sleeping. Sleeping early requires a lot more dedication and willpower. I've only recently tried to pick it back, and have consistently woken up at 7 for the past week. I stopped it during the weekends because everything interesting happens in the evening and night.
I'm going to try to keep this up at least until Spring break. I've never kept up an early bird schedule during vacation. I think that would be nice to try. It's just a lot harder when you don't have obligations during the day. Even if I stumble over vacation I'll attempt to pick it back up again for the new quarter and run with it until finals. It seems like it'd be really nice to do during the Spring. I'd get an extra two hours of warm daylight.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
"I can't do this."
Most of you know that I'm a really avid juggler. I also really love teaching juggling. If you want to learn how to juggle, I will find time to teach you. Of course a lot of people don't want to learn. A lot of them say "I'm just not interested," which is fine. And a lot say that they would be interested, but "they don't have the hand-eye coordination".
This is stupid.
Imagine if you came to me saying "H, you should read more", and I said "Sorry, I don't have the vocabulary for that." You'd laugh at me. You'd tell me vocabulary isn't something you have or you don't. It's something that nobody starts out with and everybody develops over time. If you don't have the vocabulary to read a book, than build it up. How? Read more. Reading and vocabulary feed into each other, where developing one also helps you develop the other.
Why should hand-eye coordination be any different?
A lot of people I've met have this weird static view of their abilities. They think you have a fixed coordination, or balance, or stamina or whatever that can't change no matter what you do. Because they can't always catch a ball, they will never be able to juggle. Since I can juggle, I obviously must have burst out of my mother's womb doing a five-ball cascade.
Fun fact: nobody is able to naturally juggle. I've met exactly one person who instantly picked it up, and she already did a crapton of coordination-heavy activities beforehand. Juggling is just an unnatural movement that your body doesn't know how to do, and it can only get that by seriously improving your coordination. Don't believe me? My coordination was so bad it took me three days to learn. Most people take three hours.
As I got better at juggling, my coordination and reflexes steadily improved. As they improved, I became a better juggler. This is because my attributes are dynamic. It's not that I have bad reflexes, it's that I have bad reflexes for now.
And why shouldn't this be true of everything? Don't think you have the balance to dance? Then dance until you have balance. Don't have the ear for music? Then practice until you can tell the tones. Don't have the patience to meditate? Keep doing it for a month and see what happens.
We all start with varying strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to improving, dedication and motivation matter much more than natural ability. Learning and doing new things change us. If you think of yourself as static then you're doing yourself a huge disservice .
This is stupid.
Imagine if you came to me saying "H, you should read more", and I said "Sorry, I don't have the vocabulary for that." You'd laugh at me. You'd tell me vocabulary isn't something you have or you don't. It's something that nobody starts out with and everybody develops over time. If you don't have the vocabulary to read a book, than build it up. How? Read more. Reading and vocabulary feed into each other, where developing one also helps you develop the other.
Why should hand-eye coordination be any different?
A lot of people I've met have this weird static view of their abilities. They think you have a fixed coordination, or balance, or stamina or whatever that can't change no matter what you do. Because they can't always catch a ball, they will never be able to juggle. Since I can juggle, I obviously must have burst out of my mother's womb doing a five-ball cascade.
Fun fact: nobody is able to naturally juggle. I've met exactly one person who instantly picked it up, and she already did a crapton of coordination-heavy activities beforehand. Juggling is just an unnatural movement that your body doesn't know how to do, and it can only get that by seriously improving your coordination. Don't believe me? My coordination was so bad it took me three days to learn. Most people take three hours.
As I got better at juggling, my coordination and reflexes steadily improved. As they improved, I became a better juggler. This is because my attributes are dynamic. It's not that I have bad reflexes, it's that I have bad reflexes for now.
And why shouldn't this be true of everything? Don't think you have the balance to dance? Then dance until you have balance. Don't have the ear for music? Then practice until you can tell the tones. Don't have the patience to meditate? Keep doing it for a month and see what happens.
We all start with varying strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to improving, dedication and motivation matter much more than natural ability. Learning and doing new things change us. If you think of yourself as static then you're doing yourself a huge disservice .
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Chain of Insights
I vaguely know I had something I was going to talk about this week. Probably something either navel-gazing or incredibly pretentious. But I can't remember it. And I don't care! Because I actually have something I DO want to talk about!
Last night I was getting ready for bed when I was struck with a mode of insight. It's hard to describe. For maybe five minutes my brain stopped thinking in terms of logical progresses and just went straight from premises to conclusions. I managed to write one of them down, but the rest faded away after half an hour. It was one of the most surreal experiences since Chile.
So now what? I really want to make it happen again. How do I do that? I don't know. I'm completely at loss for how to go about this. Anybody have any ideas?
Last night I was getting ready for bed when I was struck with a mode of insight. It's hard to describe. For maybe five minutes my brain stopped thinking in terms of logical progresses and just went straight from premises to conclusions. I managed to write one of them down, but the rest faded away after half an hour. It was one of the most surreal experiences since Chile.
So now what? I really want to make it happen again. How do I do that? I don't know. I'm completely at loss for how to go about this. Anybody have any ideas?
Monday, January 23, 2012
Introducing the Workbank
Recently I've run into two problems:
1) I've haven't been working all that much for my research professor. I love the work, I just... don't do it.
2) I don't have funds set aside from discretionary spending. I believe I shouldn't spend money under any circumstances that aren't "I need to live", which is an obvious problem. I still buy luxuries, but I feel bad when I do. This isn't a good way to live.
So I've decided to kill two birds with one stone: introducing the workbank! For every hour of physics work I do I get five bucks of disposable spending, slightly under half of the amount I make. I can spend this on whatever I want, like meals on campus, club dues, cooking equipment, etc. Only five dollars max roll over to the next week, plus whatever I made that Sunday (to give incentive to work on Sundays). And to add a bit of bite: if the workbank ever goes negative, I have to donate twice the difference to charity.
Ideally this means I can spend guilt free as long as I work, since for every dollar I spend I'm also saving at least a dollar. So does it work? I've had it running for a week, and I haven't had any problems so far. I made more progress last week than I did in November. I've also been buying more nonnecessities. While I still feel a little guilty, hopefully that will go away in time. I've been making really small 'just because' purchases to work on that. Hoping on keeping this up for at least another month, if not indefinitely.
The idea of combining solutions to problems is actually a pretty interesting one. I haven't thought too much about it besides "it might work here", but I'm going to play around with it and see if anything really useful comes out.
1) I've haven't been working all that much for my research professor. I love the work, I just... don't do it.
2) I don't have funds set aside from discretionary spending. I believe I shouldn't spend money under any circumstances that aren't "I need to live", which is an obvious problem. I still buy luxuries, but I feel bad when I do. This isn't a good way to live.
So I've decided to kill two birds with one stone: introducing the workbank! For every hour of physics work I do I get five bucks of disposable spending, slightly under half of the amount I make. I can spend this on whatever I want, like meals on campus, club dues, cooking equipment, etc. Only five dollars max roll over to the next week, plus whatever I made that Sunday (to give incentive to work on Sundays). And to add a bit of bite: if the workbank ever goes negative, I have to donate twice the difference to charity.
Ideally this means I can spend guilt free as long as I work, since for every dollar I spend I'm also saving at least a dollar. So does it work? I've had it running for a week, and I haven't had any problems so far. I made more progress last week than I did in November. I've also been buying more nonnecessities. While I still feel a little guilty, hopefully that will go away in time. I've been making really small 'just because' purchases to work on that. Hoping on keeping this up for at least another month, if not indefinitely.
The idea of combining solutions to problems is actually a pretty interesting one. I haven't thought too much about it besides "it might work here", but I'm going to play around with it and see if anything really useful comes out.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
On Inertia
Let's try an experiment. Take some homework you have. If it's reading, read two or three sentences. If it's a problem set, set up one of the problems. I'll wait for you to do that.
Okay. Do you stop after three lines or read an entire paragraph? Do you try to solve the problem?
I know I do. As I started making small, cumulative changes, I noticed some patterns to how I did things. I didn't want to start working on a project. But once I started, I didn't want to stop. Once I start a problem set, I have no trouble working for two hours. The problem is starting. It's not quite laziness, because I don't give up early. I think a better word is 'inertia'. At person at rest remains at rest, and a person moving remains moving.
Inertia prevents you from doing things. But I think it can also work in your favor. Since the hardest part of doing something is starting it, we should be able to cheat that by using a small stepping stone. If you don't feel like exercising, say you'll walk to the gym to clear your mind. Then enter the gym to use the water fountain. Then just do a small part of your routine...
It's all about that first step. Inertia is a powerful thing.
Okay. Do you stop after three lines or read an entire paragraph? Do you try to solve the problem?
I know I do. As I started making small, cumulative changes, I noticed some patterns to how I did things. I didn't want to start working on a project. But once I started, I didn't want to stop. Once I start a problem set, I have no trouble working for two hours. The problem is starting. It's not quite laziness, because I don't give up early. I think a better word is 'inertia'. At person at rest remains at rest, and a person moving remains moving.
Inertia prevents you from doing things. But I think it can also work in your favor. Since the hardest part of doing something is starting it, we should be able to cheat that by using a small stepping stone. If you don't feel like exercising, say you'll walk to the gym to clear your mind. Then enter the gym to use the water fountain. Then just do a small part of your routine...
It's all about that first step. Inertia is a powerful thing.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Millennium Goals - Deadline One
The first set of millennium goals were to be completed by today. Overall, I didn't do very well. Goals are below.
Successfully replicate a restaurant dish. Pass. Done with a couple of different things. Unfortunately this doesn't really mean that much, because "any restaurant dish" is such a low bar it's impossible not to pass. The other goal is a lot stricter, and I'll definitely have a lot more fun with that.
Read two books on photography. Fail. Was planning on doing this over break, decided to read things I wanted to instead.
Run a 7.5 minute mile. Pass! Really proud of this one!
Bench press 140 pounds. Fail. Nowhere close. Hoping I'll get this far by spring break. Reaching 200 by the end of spring quarter will be physically impossible.
Flash five balls. Pass. Video goes up when I can juggle them.
Sit still for 20 minutes. Passed a couple of different times. Honestly not sure why I wanted to do this one.
Get an A- in Grad Math Methods and a A in Statmech. Fail. I withdrew from Math Methods.
Stop instinctively avoiding eye contact. Pass, I think. This one is a lot harder to judge success, but I think I'm doing a lot better.
Write a 500 word creative piece in Spanish. 50 words is the same thing as 500, right? No? Then fail.
Overall 5 passes, 4 fails, only really proud of 2 of the passes. My original goal was to have at least 13 passes in total, meaning I'd have to pass eight of the long term goals. I'm definitely failing the anaerobic one and almost-definitely the Spanish one, so there's no chance of hitting that mark. I still intend to try for them and accept the consequences of failing.
Looking back, I'm unsurprised I did so poorly. I was setting up huge goals with a lot of time to do them with no milestones. It would have made a lot more sense to set up a bunch of small goals that built on each other with short times between them. Weekly goals, if you will. I'm gonna go back to the drawing board and find a better way of structuring improvement.
Successfully replicate a restaurant dish. Pass. Done with a couple of different things. Unfortunately this doesn't really mean that much, because "any restaurant dish" is such a low bar it's impossible not to pass. The other goal is a lot stricter, and I'll definitely have a lot more fun with that.
Read two books on photography. Fail. Was planning on doing this over break, decided to read things I wanted to instead.
Run a 7.5 minute mile. Pass! Really proud of this one!
Bench press 140 pounds. Fail. Nowhere close. Hoping I'll get this far by spring break. Reaching 200 by the end of spring quarter will be physically impossible.
Flash five balls. Pass. Video goes up when I can juggle them.
Sit still for 20 minutes. Passed a couple of different times. Honestly not sure why I wanted to do this one.
Get an A- in Grad Math Methods and a A in Statmech. Fail. I withdrew from Math Methods.
Stop instinctively avoiding eye contact. Pass, I think. This one is a lot harder to judge success, but I think I'm doing a lot better.
Write a 500 word creative piece in Spanish. 50 words is the same thing as 500, right? No? Then fail.
Overall 5 passes, 4 fails, only really proud of 2 of the passes. My original goal was to have at least 13 passes in total, meaning I'd have to pass eight of the long term goals. I'm definitely failing the anaerobic one and almost-definitely the Spanish one, so there's no chance of hitting that mark. I still intend to try for them and accept the consequences of failing.
Looking back, I'm unsurprised I did so poorly. I was setting up huge goals with a lot of time to do them with no milestones. It would have made a lot more sense to set up a bunch of small goals that built on each other with short times between them. Weekly goals, if you will. I'm gonna go back to the drawing board and find a better way of structuring improvement.
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