Here’s another episode of my youtube channel!
You are wrong about everything and so am I! This episode is much less about fiction and much more on human psychology. Why are we wrong? Why do we want to be right? How can we cope with the vast incomprehensibility of the universe? And why are political parties SUCH A JOKE?
Why do people “like” articles without reading them? They read the title, or see the featured meme, and just give it a like without knowing the full extent of what they have just promoted.
I had one blog post for which I used a cute meme for the featured image and I noticed that it got many more likes than the blog post where I simply posted a link alone without a picture. I think many, on first glance, thought I was only sharing a meme. And therefore liked it.
I was excited that so many had liked the last post, but I didn’t want them to like the cute cartoon, I wanted them to read the blog post! So I decided I’d rather have less interactions that are more meaningful. People don’t mistake it for a meme if the picture on my blog post has no words.
I don’t want my blog post to get shared through the like-osphere and never get actually read!
I fear that that happens a lot. People like and share articles based on the picture or title alone and most don’t read the article itself. This blog post about Bernie Sanders becoming president through a weird loophole talks all about this.
You can chart out a whole network of people who shared that article and only a tiny percentage read it. How many articles suffer the same fate?
Don’t be a shallow sharer. Share less. Read more. Think more. Social Media is shallow enough. Dive deep. Learn more. Then share only what is truly valuable.
Go forth and be epic!
Booyah.
I have a theory that there are (at least) 2 types of work. This theory has been stewing in my head for a few months, and I’ve recently tried putting it into effect. I think it works for me!
The first type is more commonly known and understood. I’ll call it exhale work. It’s when you put forth outward work, expelling energy and effort out from within yourself to some external thing. Hammering in a nail, speaking on a phone call, or typing up a report are all forms of this exhale work.
But often I’ll have times where I have a super productive 4 hours and get a lot done, but dang I need a break! Even after a 15 minute break or a 30 minute lunch, my brain is still sore.
So what do I do? I can’t just take the rest of the day off. That next report is due soon! It’s like I’ve just let out a very long breath and now I need to breath in!
The same can happen with creative work. You can only output so much before you need more input. And you can only breath in (read or watch shows) so much before you have to breath out again (write/create).
That creative analogy holds the key. I can’t have my output be writing fiction and my input is eating a sandwich (that had a very different output). Therefore I can’t expect to output research reports if my input is a YouTube video.
Now legitimate breaks have their time and place (hey man, I didn’t say the breathing metaphor was perfect). Sometimes you need to be not working at all (that’s why it’s the law to have two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute lunch in a standard 8 hour work day), but I’m talking about something else. I’m talking about eating calories before you output physical effort. I’m talking about reading the minutes before planning the next meeting, I’m talking about casually reviewing your boss’s comments on your report before revising it.
I’m talking about inputting the raw data into myself, in a calm and stress-free fashion, with no thought of output but only thought of input.
It’s the type of work that keeps you at the station, it uses less energy as you’re trying to recover, and it helps you keep your momentum, like jogging or walking for a few minutes when you are out on a long run.
You have to know the difference between inhale work, exhale work, a break, and a false progress activity.
The other day I thought I was doing a type of inhale work but was really doing a false progress activity. I was working on one report and didn’t want to use my brain, so I decided to just make tons of charts to “get started.” It took me hours. It turns out that when I make a conscious and strategic decision of how to present all of the data (what to not include at all, what to mention in a simple sentence, and what to put in a chart) that the work is harder mentally, but much shorter. I make real progress on outputting the report.
I have to make sure that my working breaks are motivated by exhaustion rather than laziness. When I try to be lazy, I waste time making fifty charts when I only needed ten. And if I needed some inhale work? I should have just read the unfiltered data and wrote the report later.
So, when you’ve been outputting a lot and you feel like you need to breath, the breath. Find what the intake when is for that task, and do it. If you need a break, take it. Trying to output all the time will kill you. You’ve got to breath in.
Now for me, and I am writing this at 11:16 at night, which is late for a dad. And I need a break break before I can exhale any more life.
Booyah!
I find that we humans sometimes become obsessed with philosophies that we think will help us overcome our flaws or that are the opposite of our weaknesses. We find the exact opposite of our reality and repeat it like a mantra. Sometimes, this works!
But have you ever found yourself repeating a mantra that doesn’t work? The problem persists? More often than not, we pick philosophies that only sound like the solution, but in actual practice they don’t work.
Sometimes you just have to keep striving and the philosophy will help you. Just because something takes a while to work doesn’t mean it’s wrong. But, sometimes you’re backing the wrong horse. Sometimes you’re trying a philosophy that really won’t help you.
I’ll use myself as an example. For years I felt powerless over certain weaknesses and habits and I sought a way to overcome them. Many talk about how you should “man up!” or “just do it!” or “pick yourself up by your bootstraps!” (a physical impossibility, you need something to push off of to pick yourself up, all you’ll do is tighten your boots if you follow that advice!). They say that by throwing agency and willpower at problems that you can conquer anything! You can be anything that you want! Like in the poem below. I once had it memorized and repeated it thousands of time. Hoping that it would give me strength:
Invictus
by William E. Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may
for my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
Sounds awesome right? Sounds epic? How many memes and songs are out there today that are all about “Look at the awesomeness of me! I can do anything!”
Well, the poem didn’t fix me. I fell prey to the same weaknesses over and over again. Anger. Selfishness. A desire to consume entertainment and mental stimulation to excess. I was powerless to break my habits.
Thomas S. Monson (one of my Church’s leaders) said: “It is a great poem. It places upon the individual the responsibility for what he does with his life… But on the other hand, it may sound arrogant and conceited in terms of the Atonement.”
I learned over time that I couldn’t overcome my flaws by agency alone. That poem didn’t give me power. Why not? Why couldn’t I “man” myself out of my weaknesses? After some new understanding, I found this other poem which was written as a response to Invictus:
The Soul’s Captain
by Orson F. Whitney
Art thou in truth the master of thy fate?
The captain of thy soul?
Then what of him
who bought thee with his blood?
Who plunged into devouring seas
and snatched thee from the raging flood?
Who bore for all our fallen race
what none but him could bear–
the God who died that man might live,
and endless glory share?
Of what avail thy vaunted strength,
Apart from his vast might?
Pray that his Light
may pierce the gloom,
that thou might see aright.
Men are as bubbles on the wave,
as leaves upon the tree,
O’ captain of thy soul, explain!
Who gave that place to thee?
Free will is thine–free agency,
To wield for right or wrong;
But thou must answer unto him
To whom all souls belong.
Bend to the dust thy head “unbowed,”
small part of Life’s great whole!
And see in him, and him alone,
The Captain of thy soul.
Whether you are religious or not, the example works. Both poems are used as a solution to a flaw: feeling powerless to overcome weakness. One says grit your teeth and be tough, the other says use your agency to rely on something more powerful than yourself. You need someone/something to help lift you.
I had felt powerless that I chanted “I’m powerful!” a thousand times. But now I know that I am powerless. And only through the surrender of my will and my life to God do I find power.
Now, by switching philosophies, I have made much more progress with my flaws. I’m not perfect, and don’t expect to be anytime soon. But when I encounter a weakness, I surrender the battle with it to God. I bend with the wind, letting it pass over me, letting God take care of it. And the wind doesn’t break me nearly as often.
Not my will. His will. Not my glory. His glory. Not my battle. His battle. Let go and let God.
There are others that I see chanting their mantras such as miserable people who say “Do only what makes you happy and you alone.”
Those who have hurt others that say “If it’s in the past it doesn’t matter, accept what everyone does, have no expectations” and say nothing of the need for repentance, forgiveness, and restitution for harm done.
Those who are promiscuous and say “This lifestyle makes me happy” yet end up wondering why they are so sad and lonely.
Likely the greatest and the most harmful is the modern philosophy: “To follow your impulses with no restraint is freedom” and those who repeat that often learn too late that following impulses alone with no control leads to a life of slavery to addiction and to habit, with no friends or loved ones, broken and weak. Lonely and alone.
If you take a hard look at yourself, past the lies you tell yourself, you might find that the mantra or philosophy you keep repeating isn’t yielding the results you want. You might see that you need to double your efforts and persevere, you might see that you misunderstand the philosophy you are repeating, or you might see that you are trying to implement a philosophy that just won’t work. The philosophy is either a lie, or a half-truth.
Good luck! Keep trying, or give it up!
Booyah.
Some people are willing to separate themselves from their ideas, while others are not.
I have some acquaintances who are easy to discuss differences of opinion with, because they don’t take it personally. Others get frustrated when I question an idea. I don’t necessarily question because I disagree, but because I want to view it from all angles and want to see if there are any holes in the idea. They see it as a personal attack.
Most people are not interested in truth but only in confirming what they believe.
People should be willing to place their beliefs on the altar of truth and then sacrifice it if the belief proves unworthy. Like Abraham and Isaac, you might not have to, but sometimes you will. You must be willing to leave behind false, broken, or incomplete ideas if they fail to pass the test of truth.
But the world is full of people with confirmation bias. They only want echo chambers.
Facebook and the current election are great examples of that. Facebook will show you that which you are most likely to like and interact with and that which matches what you say in your posts and what your search for on the web (and peeps usually search for things to confirm their beliefs, not offer an alternate perspective). Therefore everyone thought their favorite would win because “everyone on Facebook says so and agrees with me!” Facebook is flooded that way. Google too.
Am I wrong?
These three words have been vital to my growth. To constantly ask myself this has helped me to keep an open mind, to discard weak beliefs, and to keep and strengthen those that can stand the test of analysis of the evidence time and time again.
Rather than taking offense and shouting and declaring that my education or some vague authority makes me right (my argument not my authority should make me right instead, but I know people who do such blanket appeals to authority), I try to be open to the ideas and arguments of others.
I try to provide all foundations and steps of my argument so people don’t have to make leaps of logic or leaps of faith to accept my conclusions.
And I try to not take criticism of my ideas personally. Every false belief rejected is not a tragedy but a triumph, for you are now one step closer to the truth.
Boo yah!
-Thomas
Thomas Fawkes 