Monthly Archives: December 2019

Connections over time

Last night we connected with friends we haven’t seen in over a decade. The conversation immediately evaporated the years between visits. Our daughters were essentially meeting for the first time with only a vague memory of having ever met before. It didn’t matter, the conversation was rich, and enjoyable. How is it that 10 years can melt away so quickly?

I’ve had similar experiences with friends whom I’ve only connected with online. Then we ‘meet’ and it feels like we are reconnecting, rather than connecting for the first time face-to-face. And after that first meeting, the online connection gets even stronger. The relationships we develop with people seem to create a lasting impression that time does not interfere with.

Friendship is the glue that holds people together across time and space. A bond that holds people together with the effort to connect when geography permits, and that geography is getting less and less restrictive… As we left the restaurant, our friend said in all seriousness, “Australia is just 15 hours away.” I think that distance might be travelled before another decade slips by.

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I just went back and read ‘A letter to friends‘ that I wrote just over a decade ago as we headed to China, shortly after my last visit with the friends above. Seems I was thinking along the same lines, even back then.

Let the holidays begin

It’s the last day of school before the holiday break and I’m really looking forward to the time off with my family! I’m already eating too much, and so my treadmill run this morning will be longer and slower for a good calorie burn, and I will try to keep up my time-restricted eating to prevent some of the late-night snacking. But I will also indulge a bit too. Last night I was in bed by 8:45pm, I can tell that I need a break.

One thing that I always think about this time of year is how different the holidays are for many of the students in our schools:

  • Some will have holidays that make us envious, while some will stay cooped up at home with ‘nothing’ to do.
  • Some will celebrate the holidays with presents, some will not.
  • Some will eat to their heart’s content, some will eat whatever they can get.
  • Some will feel the love of a complete family, some will feel the loss of a loved one more than any other time of the year.
  • Some are excited about the break, some are dreading it and wish it wasn’t so long.

We sometimes forget that the joy we feel for the holidays is not always felt by everyone. For those of you in schools, pay attention to who might need a bit of your time and attention today. Celebrate the start of holidays by spreading some cheer with some of the kids that need it most.

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Also, if you are in the spirit of giving, help Inquiry Hub Student, Andrew, raise money for young teens that will have very little over the holidays. Support Covenant House in Vancouver.

Happy holidays!

“All Those Christmas Cliche’s” by Katie Truss

This is a solo my daughter sang last night at her school Christmas Concert:

The gentleman in front of me gave her a standing ovation and came up to her afterwards to tell that he was a professional musician for a decade, and that he loved her presence.

It’s so wonderful to watch your child shine at something she loves to do. Music and drama have made Katie’s high school experience truly special, and last night we got to watch her in her element.

Yes, I’m playing the role of a proud father. Way to go Katie, you sounded great, and more importantly, I could tell you were truly enjoying yourself. I could see the nervousness before you started to sing, and then it all melted away and you were fully present and giving it your best. I loved it! <3

Just one more thing

Where does the drive to continually ‘do more’ come from? I can’t help but wonder what we fail to accomplish because we choose to do so much? When we add something new to our metaphorical plates, do we take the time to ask, ‘what am I going to take off of my plate so that I can add this new thing’?

Are we cogs in a wheel?

Is it our job simply to keep up as best as we can?

When layers of bureaucracy are added, our productivity decreases. When obligations increase what happens to innovation? Where does creativity go when a calendar gets filled? When we are asked to do more and more, and we comply and fill our days, what gets lost?

What are we letting go of when we keep doing more?

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Here is a a fable from Joe Hyams book, Zen in the Martial Arts



TRY SOFTER

A young boy traveled across Japan to the school of a famous martial artist. When he arrived at the dojo he was given an audience by the sensei.

“What do you wish from me?” the master asked.

“I wish to be your student and become the finest karateka in the land,” the boy replied. “How long must I study?”

“Ten years at least,” the master answered.

“Ten years is a long time,” said the boy. “What if I study twice as hard as all your other students?”

“Twenty years,” replied the master.

“Twenty years! What if I practice day and night with all my effort?”

“Thirty years,” was the master’s reply.

“How is it that each time I say I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer?” the boy asked.

“The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way.”

Related: Less is more. Teach less, learn more.

The antidote to writer’s block

…is this. It’s writing.

Last night before bed, I stared at a blank screen and tried writing. Nothing came to me. I started to write a number of post titles, and then I’d erase them. I looked at my saved drafts, underwhelmed and uninspired. I fell asleep working on this. I woke up with a blank page.

Fifteen minutes this morning I have stared at the blank page, thinking of a memorable moment to share, and concluding that I live a boring life. Wondering what I have of value to share, I realized that I’m stuck. If I wait any longer I will have to skip my morning workout. So I just start writing about writer’s block.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. ~Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

I’ve been here before, I’ll end up here again, it’s a creative wall we must all get over. But if I skip this hurdle, and avoid writing today, it permits me to do so again. If I sit here and don’t write, not putting these words ‘out there’, then I’ll miss my workout, thus permitting my block in one area to create a block in another.

But if I write about this block again tomorrow, then I’m skipping the hurdle in a different way. So, I give myself permission to write about writer’s block today, so that these paragraphs can unblock me.

The page is no longer blank.

2020 Vision – 3 predictions

Here are ways that I think digital content and content sharing are going to change in 2020:

1. More subscription-based online content without commercials.

Ad revenue sites will not be able to compete. This is the perfect time for a good micro-payment site to come along (imagine Medium blogs, but a ‘clap’ (or ‘Like’) is a 1 or 5 cent donation, or think of Twitch, which already has audiences paying for people to share content). However, while subscriptions for content will grow significantly, micro-payments will only just start to get a foothold in 2020.

2. Privacy concerns will reshape what and how we share.

Google and Facebook will both see dips in revenue and growth because people will choose to not search signed in (or choose to use private search like DuckDuckGo or private browsers like Brave). Facebook will have more advertising based/click-bait sharing, but less personal sharing. People won’t be complaining about privacy as much as just being cautious about what they share, and consciously sharing less personal information.

3. There is going to be an explosion of paid content infomercials.

You will be reading an article and suddenly there is a product placement you were not expecting. For example, in #1 above I mentioned Medium blogs and Twitch, and in #2 I mentioned DuckDuckGo and Brave. I could also have added links to them with a detailed sentences or a paragraph about them, intentionally ‘selling’ them as part of this post. Product placement within blog and news articles will be the new equivalent of the banner ad.

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I have not been a fan of paywalls and content hidden for subscription only, but I think that good, commercial free content will cost money in the future. You will either pay for the content, or you will give up personal information, or you will see imbedded advertising hidden in the content you read. Creators of good content are going to start providing teaser content where you either subscribe to see more, or just click to accept a micropayment to continue.

The advertising model will adapt and there will be even more click bait articles, but instead of making you click 10 pages to see 10 photos of some ‘amazing’ list surrounded by advertising, you will see the first 2 then pay 1-5 cents to see the next 8. We will still need to be discerning consumers if we want to get to the good content we are interested in, and we will have to be willing to pay a bit to continue reading, listening, or watching.

Lifestyle as process, not outcome

I love this quote:

New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do.

And a lifestyle is not an outcome, it is a process. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results. ~ James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.

Regular fitness, listening to audio books while I work out (and instead of the radio in my car), regular writing, time restricted eating, and daily meditation… these are lifestyle choices I made, I track daily, and I hold myself accountable to.

This year I made lifestyle choices that have made me feel so much better about myself.

Result: I have more of myself to offer to others, family and work. Sure, I still feel overwhelmed at times, and I still feel like I’ve got more on my plate than I can handle, but I also feel more resilient and up for the challenge.

Lifestyle is a process, not an outcome, and I’m working on that process daily. As I approach my one-year anniversary of tracking these things, I now need to reexamine my process. What am I now doing regardless of my tracking, that is now habit, and what do I need to track more closely to ensure I’m refining the process, and my habits, to make my lifestyle even richer and more rewarding?

The Bell Curve of Free Will by David Truss

The Bell Curve of Free Will

Assuming Free Will: There are some interesting and compelling arguments that we do not have free will, and according to Sam Harris, that it is only an illusion. I will address this at another time, because my thoughts on this are not fully formed. I need to read and understand more, but my general thesis on this topic is that the black box of our unconscious mind is only ever opened through bizarre dreams, deep meditation, and psychedelic drug use… all of which suggests metaphorical images and thoughts that seems to transcend logic and linear processing. If that is the case, I highly doubt that our will is somehow ordained by our past experiences in some sequential domino effect. And while our conscious minds might not grasp the true decision-making processes of our unconscious mind, that does not remove the fact that our unconscious mind acts, to some extent, freely… even if our history, our circumstances, and our virtue (among other things) might influence and restrict how much freedom of choice we have.

For now, I want to assume that we all have free will. Given this, I’d like to look at The Bell Curve of Free Will that I constructed to describe my thoughts on this topic.

My Premise:

If we have free will then I believe that how much choice we have will be influenced considerably by our circumstance and by how virtuous we are.

Background on the Graph: I should have created 2 different graphs, one for circumstance and one for virtue, but the dotted line showing how one influences the other is important. Further, I could have created charts about how our choices are increased or limited based on many different factors, like our health, our culture or religion, or our parents. I chose circumstance and virtue because they are easy to connect in my example, and highly influential to our free will, or our lack of ability to make choices.

Here is the image I created:

Circumstance and Free Will: If you are destitute or impoverished, if you are in a situation where you are unsafe or starving, your choices are very limited. You are more likely to go to extreme measures to improve your safety or well-being, at any cost including illegal, unreasonable, or unconscionable means, even if you wouldn’t want to do these things if your circumstances are different. You will act to protect or feed yourself and your family and those reasons overrule reasons you would otherwise have to not do something desperate. However, your circumstances limit you from doing things many other people could easily choose to do.

On the other hand, if you are affluent and have a lot of influence, the choices you get to make are significantly greater than if you are destitute. From living arrangements, to choice of foods, to freedom to travel, to caring for your loved ones, an affluent person can make so many choices and have so much freedom to make those choices compared to those that are only thinking of survival or their next meal. This isn’t a bell curve, this is a direct relationship where affluence and power, or lack of these, directly influence the amount of choice a person has.

Virtue and Free Will: The vast majority of people have a lot of choice and free will, while people on the extremes of the virtue scale do not. If you are a genuinely evil person who gets pleasure out of being hurtful and evil, you are probably limited in your choice and ability to do good deeds and make kind choices. When you are angry, your choices become more limited, your reactions to circumstance are less likely to provide you with more options that if you were more level-headed.

On the other extreme, if you are extremely virtuous and benevolent, you simply could not make choices that are hurtful to others. You have more limited choice because your virtue would compel you to do ‘the right thing’ and not choose other options that are less kind, even if for example, they benefit you. Your choices become limited because you would not have the options that others would in your place. Mother Theresa probably could not choose to walk away from her charity, her virtue would not allow it.

High Virtue and High Affluence: This is shown by the dotted green line on the graph.

Affluence and influence do not necessarily result in endless choice. More virtuous people, who are also affluent, are compelled to be in the service of others and to use their means for good. Their affluence might provide more choice and means for them to do this, but if they are truly virtuous then they would be compelled towards using their affluence and influence in ways that demonstrate their virtuousness, thus reducing their will do to other things.

As a side note: I have seen many instances where people with very little means have gone out of their way to be generous and kind. And, our world is filled with many affluent and influential people who could be more virtuous and choose not to be so… even when it would mean far less sacrifice for them. Bill Gates explained this succinctly:

“My charitable giving is not impressive. What’s impressive is people who give to charities who have to sacrifice something to give it to him. In my family, we don’t even hesitate to buy yet another airplane. But there are people who have to choose, do I go out to dinner? Or do I give this $20 to my church? That’s a very different decision than I make. Those are the people that impress me.” ~ Bill Gates

An inherent flaw in putting these two graphs together is that an unintended extrapolation could be that the impoverished can not be virtuous, With this insight, here is one aspect of the two-in-one graph that is not shown, but should be noted:

High Virtue and Low Affluence: On both ends of these two scales the choice is limited, and so free will would be further diminished. As an example: A devout and benevolent monk or priest who is in the same destitute situation as someone equally as impoverished (but less virtuous) could not choose to harm or steal from someone even if it was to feed his/her own family.

Final Thoughts: I wonder if conscientious people who think about philosophy, and/or are compelled towards the sciences to do ‘good’, and make a difference in the world, are more likely to believe that there is no such thing as free will… since by nature of their virtues, they have less free will than someone that is not as concerned about the well-being of humanity? In a way, I could have titled this graph ‘The Curse of Free Will’ because either you are cursed to be evil, or you are cursed to be kind, since in both cases you are allotted less choice in life, less free will. Is it somehow more blissful and less restrictive to live a somewhat selfish life? Is our propensity towards this unenlightened life the reason religions are born? If free will does not lead us to be more virtuous, what does?

 

Our faulty user interfaces

We know that bees can see ultraviolet light that humans can not see. We know that dogs and other animals can hear sounds that humans can not hear. Scientists understand Newton’s laws, until the laws fall apart when studying the smallest of particles and objects traveling at very fast speeds. When we look for light to act light a particle it acts like a particle and when we look for light to act like a wave it acts like a wave… we still don’t really understand all there is to know about light.

And yet somehow we think we have a grasp on reality. We don’t. We do not yet have a full scientific grasp of our universe, we don’t even understand what consciousness is. What we do know is that our perception of the world is based on models of the world and not actually the world itself. We have very faulty user interfaces, insufficient sensors, that warp our perception of reality.

Think about the diversity of human perception for a moment. We know that there are people who can not see colour. There are even people who see colours that are not present, like Daniel Tammet, ‘The Boy With The Incredible Brain‘.

Watching this video makes me think about how my user interface differs from someone with autism, someone who might be overloaded with stimulus (information) in the environment that does not overwhelm me, and who might at the same time be blind (or at least unaware) of facial expressions that I find easy to read or interpret. Even for those that can interpret facial expressions, this is not an exact science and so we are each noticing different things with some people being far more perceptive than others.

Take this another step further and think of the incompleteness of the memories that we have. We make lousy eyewitnesses, and we reconstruct memories slightly differently over time. This is even more exaggerated when we add heightened emotions to an event.  Have you ever heard someone talking about an experience from an emotional standpoint arguing with someone talking about the same experience from a logical standpoint? It’s like they are living in two different realities. In fact, each and every one of us perceive the world in drastically different ways, and our emotional state influences our perception, and our ability to recall our experience.

Our user interface with the world is not accurate, we know this, but we also know that the world isn’t just an illusion. We know the sun emits light and heat, we can see the light on surfaces in our field of vision, and we can feel the heat on our faces. But I can’t know that my experience of the colour blue is exactly like yours, or that my comfort with the heat of the sun is similar to yours either. But I wonder how much our upbringing, and the culture we live in influence how we interpret the world around us?

I remember learning in an anthropology class that some tribes that live in the dense forest struggle with the idea of seeing an image of an animal in the distance as an animal that is far way, instead thinking of them as tiny animals. Their model of the world does not include a full-sized tiger that can be seen a hundred meters away. Their visual perception of the world is different than someone raised in a desert.

How else does our environment that we live in influence what we can and do perceive? How does our politics, our ethics, and our beliefs influence our perception?

How different is my world from your world? And what consensuses can we come to in order to make it a better world for everyone?

Giving from the heart

I love this video:

I’ve consistently noticed that kids will be selfless when they have an opportunity to show their love and appreciation for family. I’ve also noticed that this generosity increases with students who have less than most. That’s worth reflecting on!

On the topic of giving, here is a wonderful story about how an Inquiry Hub student, Andrew, ended up raising an incredible amount of money for Covenant House.

Andrew is continuing to raise money for them this year. If you are inclined to support homeless youth and youth in need, please consider a contribution.

Thank you and happy holidays ahead!