Saturday, August 31, 2024

The Fog of Self-Awareness

A friend faced an unexpected major expense. Living paycheck-to-paycheck, he was stuck. I loaned him the money, which he agreed to repay in monthly chunks. I imposed one condition: he had to self-manage his payback. I didn't want to keep track, or discuss, or think about it at all.

He'd wound up being a paycheck-to-paycheck guy thanks to his lack of organization skills. I feared it might be tough for him to tabulate the repayment, and, sure enough, it all blew up after a few months and I needed to dive into bank records to determine my abashed friend's current debt.

No big deal, but a few years later he hit another snag and needed another loan. I restated my conditions, imploring him to find some way to track payback. No problem, he replied. He'd just note the payments in his phone's calendar!

But if the answer was so easy, why hadn't he done that last time?

Either:
1. It isn't that simple...which means more drastic steps are necessary, or

2. It is that simple...which means he hadn't taken the previous loan seriously (if so, why would I want to loan to him?)
Most people would get pissy at this point, insisting, baselessly, that they had it all under control this time, but my friend pulled off a small miracle of self-awareness by fully grokking my point. "I've got this" isn't a universally applicable response!

He understood that he needed to take more drastic steps. So will he manage to track his payments this time? Probably not. But it won't be for lack of self-awareness!

Meanwhile...



A Bengali woman in my neighborhood is trying to make a go as a restaurateur, but she has a rather fatal flaw: she cannot cook efficiently. She fiddles endlessly.

It's tough to be a professional chef when one isn't, uh, a professional chef. So her customers wait hours for her to dash out of her kitchen in an aggrieved, apologetic tizzy. Every time!

I tried texting ahead, but it didn't help. She can’t cook to a deadline - any deadline. So I asked her to try texting me five minutes before the food's ready. She agreed cheerfully, and asked a perfectly normal question: When, exactly, would I like it?

As if it mattered! She can't cook to deadline! The question is nonsense! But I couldn't penetrate her amnesia. Fancying herself a restaurant chef, she rotely follows the form of what chefs do. Her self-awareness is less than miraculous. But it's the same fog.



An important unrelated point: If my friend could organize himself, it would help him far beyond the satisfaction of my petty preference. Same for the Bengali chef. It's unreasonable to expect people to rectify their shortcomings for my gratification. I've learned not to take this sort of thing personally!



I've been trying to connect the two experiences and understand the fallacy behind this. I think it hinges on a phrase I used above: "rotely following the form." Both cases involve a false assumption of continuity. She fancies herself a chef. All the contrary evidence remains perpetually behind her. That was before, but the future is bright!

We assume that we own our trajectory, our continuity. We surely have some degree of control. "I've got this!" We imagine ourselves abstractly, as cartoon avatars hypothetically poised to gamely accomplish the task and fulfill the role. Neat, crisp, and squeaky clean! Meanwhile a compassionate amnesia conceals the upsetting disjoint between this cartoon tidiness and the mess that is our reality.

My examples spotlight particularly well-intentioned and sincere people. Imagine how much stickier it all gets when one must factor in snide disregard or even outright malevolence. What if my friend were reluctant to pay back the loan?

In fact, we even project negativity when none is present. This explains the basis for Napoleon's quote: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." The apparent reluctance to take responsibility, and the apparently heedless failure to stave off inevitable breakdowns, make it easy to suspect ill-will.

But even "incompetence" is unduly brusque. It's really just a narrowness of framing. We're naturally foggy in anticipating outcomes, and amnesiac to previous failure which would shake our sense of smooth cartoon continuity. We genuinely imagine our next run will be the good one, putting it all right, even though, past a certain point, we're exhibiting the proverbial insanity of doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

The trick is, as usual, a flip of perspective: own your incompetence. Inhabit the discontinuity. Don't aim to feel smart, aim to actually get smart. By allowing ourselves to feel perpetually messy, we stoke curiosity and kindle creativity to patch holes, clear obstructions, and find new procedures (i.e. the "drastic steps" I urged my friend to devise). Live in the actual mess, not a slick imaginary cartoon. Shake off the amnesia and get real!

In the examples above, I was the one illuminating blind spots and contriving workarounds, while the other person labored to preserve continuity. I brainstormed while they remained stuck in slapstick comedy loops, endlessly assuring "No problem!" as an endless series of rakes slapped their faces.



As they framed it, there was a need to Do a Thing, so they reset - over and over - with steely determination to get 'er done. It never dawned on them that such an approach deprecated their previous efforts. They'd tried plenty hard those times, too! If it were just a question of steely determination, why were they caught in an endless loop? But a protective fog blocks any such consideration. Don't worry; this time I've got this!

Determination is not a cure-all. Reframing is also necessary. Me, I'm a mutant, aware of, and blithely amused by (but never depressed about) my myriad shortcomings and my track record of failure. I DON'T HAVE THIS!

So I work tirelessly to erect scaffolding and baffles and workarounds and levers and pulleys to overcome my propensity for failure and avoid the slapstick comedy loop. I have no confidence in the notion that I just need to really try this time, because I always try hard. That's my baseline! And I recall with crystal clarity the many times I applied full-hearted determination straight through to unmitigated disaster! At least I avoid the fog (while opting out of aggrieved embarrassment in the clear light of my feebleness). I just keep toiling, head down, like an ant.

This flip of owning your messy incompetence allows you to finally connect expectation with outcome; to dispel fog and escape the slapstick comedy loop. Our dodgy, inept lifestream is, paradoxically, something we can train ourselves to masterfully control, because it's real. The hypothetical shiny cartoon, not so much. A pose, by definition, has no substance!




Postscripts

The fallacy I've described affects all kinds of intelligences. AI chatbots have a devilishly hard time helping you devise directions ("prompts") for your future use with them. They labor with brisk confidence, certain they can anticipate their hypothetical reaction, but when you clear the slate (purging memory of the prep work) and try the prompt, it almost always misfires horribly. The bot goes “Huh??”

And something fascinating happens if you let the chatbot monitor the full arc of this process. If you don't erase the prep session, and instead open a new browser window to try the prompt with a fresh chatbot, then show the results to the original bot, it will steel itself to try again with greater determination ("I've got it THIS TIME!") with similar results...over and over. The same foggy amnesia! The same slapstick comedy loop!



At a certain point, I bought a bunch of tools and a stack of DIY books so I could be more of a manly man and FIX STUFF. And I found that each time I tried to faithfully follow instructions, there'd be some unique problem not anticipated in the books. It happened every time, yet an odd amnesia always made it feel exceptional.

Shaking off the fog, I realized that nothing ever goes normally. Even highly-experienced master carpenters reach an "aw, shit!" moment in every job (but they, unlike me, can improvise workarounds). Every day, they go out expecting to Do the Thing, but it's never just that, and amnesia makes the derailments feel eternally surprising.



An associated blind spot is discussed in The Expert/Layman Triage Fallacy (don't miss, too, the follow-up, where I explain how this fallacy is so strong that many people can't even parse anecdotes about it).

Monday, August 26, 2024

Greatness

I once did a fair bit of teaching of younger jazz players, mostly via seminars in Europe. Often I'd encounter someone with no perceptible swing feel - which is catastrophic. After an hour of hard work and pushing and carrying on, occasionally I might cajole one into swinging, which felt like a revelation, but I'd coach them straight through that threshold to something even higher. Not just swinging, but really swinging! And it was surprisingly common to see a few reach that lofty height...at least for a brief moment.

"Wait! Stop! Freeze!" I'd scream. "You heard what you just did, right? That was really swinging, and it felt super different, right?"

"You cannot ever go back. This isn't your new normal; it's your new baseline. You must never - even in your worst, sloppiest, most unguarded moment - swing any less than you just proved you can. If you hadn't just proved what you could do, you might have doubted your capability. But that was proof-of-concept, and it can no longer be doubted. You know how swinging you can be, so anything less from this point forward would be inexcusable."

"Failing to swing your ass off is now a capital offense. You can no longer protest that, hey, you were trying your best. Now that we know what your best really is, settling for less makes you a lazy, shitty, spoiled baby. You can't shrug off not swinging. Not anymore!"

How many of them powered up, proceeding at this higher level? Very few, of course. Most immediately dipped all the way back to their previous level; to their status quo. Not because greatness was too demanding or draining or challenging, but because they couldn't reframe themselves. Crappy unswinging mediocrity felt comfortable. It made them feel like themselves. It felt like home. Like their own comfy beds. Night night!



But every great once in a while, one would experience some internal snap (something must snap!). Reframing would happen, and they'd power up several levels, renouncing the fluffy pillows and blankets of mediocrity. Swinging hard became their new normal.

Those were the great ones. And this explains: 1. Why there are so few "great ones", and 2. What one needs to do to be great.

See "Why My Cooking Isn't Great"


Their greatness wasn't a matter of latent capability (aka "talent), or hard work (strictly speaking), or even the quality level of their result. It was about two things: reframing and commitment. The two things nobody looks at or worries about or talks about or aims for.

These things constitute the Dark Matter of the human universe, and that's what this Slog has mostly explored all these years.

Friday, August 23, 2024

Replying on a Curve

When a selfish person offers a trifle, your debt will be immense.

Selfish recipients get it. Duly surprised by generosity, they make a hero of the giver. But generous recipients often miss the rarity of the gesture. The offering of a potato chip may require celebration. A selfish giver requires praise and stroking, like a puppy who shits in the appointed box.

Generous givers and recipients can recognize each other, so the transaction is casual and easy. And well-matched selfish people smoothly play out their game theory, maneuvering past issues of intent, and ultimately agree to treat generosity as an inexplicable fluke.

The problem is with mismatches. When a generous person gives (nonchalantly) to a selfish person, primal suspicions are aroused, and it can get nasty. But it's worse when the selfish give to the generous. Failure to duly celebrate, praise, and stroke makes it all seem for naught. Gut-wrenching!

Always assess your donor! Calculate how lavishly they need to be patronized!


A friend once sent me a jokey email where he'd satirized some news item by turning it into a fairy tale or limerick or whatever. It was clumsy, and I was busy, but I shot back "Ha!" Weeks later, he informed me how many hours he'd invested in the effort, and how stricken he'd been at my monosyllabic reply.

I take people at their word that they don't like to be patronized. And feelings of superiority don’t come easily to me, anyway. So it never occurred to me to assess my friend's primitive writing skills and grade him on a curve, graciously reporting that I'd laughed and laughed at his fabulous, wonderful email.

People actually love to be patronized. They eat it right up. In fact, it's often impolite not to! So the next time someone offers...anything, remember to judge them first. Size them up! Then, if appropriate, respond as if they'd presented you with their live, beating heart. If you get it wrong, and stroke unnecessarily, they'll just figure you're weird. But if you fail the other way, and don't reply on a curve, things can turn out very badly.

Friday, August 16, 2024

Harris' Price Control Proposal

Centrists and moderates of either stripe who are alarmed by Harris' pandering talk of price controls (if you're going to ape Nixon, I'd much rather you break into hotels than mess with the economy) should read Josh Barro's superb centrist analysis (and teeth-gritted approval). I'll surmise:

It's bad...

...but it's smartly mitigated,

...and she needs this in her platform because Biden killed himself by failing to address cost of living

...and she's standing up to the hard Left in other significant ways

...so we should give her this so she defeats the Tasmanian devil.


It's a five minute read that can transform your view of what's actually going on with this stuff.

Saturday, August 10, 2024

The Secret to Scapegoating

Trump just said:
"But with your vote, the reign will be over. That horrible reign. In a way, it's a reign of terror, you know, it's a weak reign. It's an incompetent reign...It's a very dangerous reign."
Throughout history, demagogues have disparaged weakness in the same breath as they've decried dominance. That's the route to really effective scapegoating. You must make both contradictory assertions.

Jews get the "credit" for this. For centuries, we've heard how Jews are inferior, weak, and cowardly and that they run the world, cheat you out of your money, and devour your babies. All those things! So many things!

Lately it's been applied much more widely, and people are surprisingly cool with the contradiction. The juxtaposition of impotence and omnipotence somehow feels acceptable. Consider "elites", a word pronounced by both extreme left and extreme right with drippy contempt. The dissonant amalgam of contemptuous weakness with savage superiority feels credible. No bells ring.

Here's the basis: Self-pity and self-aggrandizement are two sides of the same coin. They fuel each other. For example, arrogance is always based in insecurity, and only the fearful become bullies. "Normal" people don't feel incessantly kicked, nor do they thirst for someone to kick. But once you're skewed, one way or the other, you'll inevitably draw in the antithesis.

So painting a scapegoat as both impotent and omnipotent bridges this psychic ambivalence. One-stop shopping, if you will. The scapegoat is more than just a problem. It represents all the problems - an integrated projection of contradictory impulses. Demagogues know this, and use it to stoke maximal hatred; to really scape the goat. The target is your despised oppressor while also a delicious outlet for your oppressive tendencies.


I always flip the camera, even when the result isn’t flattering, so I must concede that Donald Trump, himself, is often viewed by people like me as both feebly impotent and frightfully omnipotent. Being on the right side doesn't make one immune to demagoguery. Being correct doesn't mean you’re a clear thinker.

I try to avoid the trap by favoring the "impotence" framing. I want to block Trump from power not to thwart his diabolical master schemes, but for the same reason I want to keep a horse out of a hospital.



Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Approaching from "Normality"

How did America, a majority racist nation in 2008, elect a black president? Obama was normal. Smart. Competent. Positive. American. He didn't run as The Black Guy; he ran as a smart, competent, positive American who happened to be black.

How did America go from snide jokes about "faggots" to sharply majority pro-gay rights (including marriage) in 20 years? The movement took the tack of "We just want to love who we love, like any American." Not "a gay thing"; an American thing. The message was delivered by boring, well-dressed, reasonable people, not dudes defiantly flaunting their nipple clamps.

Why will Harris/Walz overwhelmingly win the next election? Positivity, smartness, American. Per those other two outcomes, they'll make the other side look weird and messed up. Not via recipricol snideness and extremity, but approaching from the center. From normality. That's how you do it.

Can someone - anyone? - please absorb the lesson of all this? The moment a critical threshold groks this, that's when life on earth will shift into gear...if we haven't blown ourselves up first.


See my series "A Case Against Empowerment"

They canned Shapiro because 1. Better to push through one breakthrough at a time (you can't have a black lady and a Jew), and 2. The MAGAs are right that the extreme left would not rally around a Jew on the ticket. Both calculations are smart realpolitik, and I heartily agree with the choice.

That said, it makes me extremely edgy to watch Democrats fumf and mumble and hand-wave around this, because nothing's creepier than watching gentiles fumf and mumble and hand-wave around touchy Jewish questions (I know in my mitochondria where that leads). Also: try as I might, I can't muster a gram of excitement at the prospect of a VP who "LOOKS LIKE ME" or whatever the hell the phrase is. Given a choice between a Jewish candidate and a Methodist/Muslim/Catholic/Venusian candidate who's .1% more competent or electible, of course I'd pick the latter every damned time. Tribalism and identity politics are incompatible with the lesson we need to be absorbing right now.


Friday, August 2, 2024

Missing Chunks

There's one quality tying together my fragmented identities. As an entrepreneur, as an artist (writer and musician), and as a yogi, nothing gets me more excited than to spot something missing in the world. I feel compelled to fill it, if possible. At such moments, I feel called.

This Slog is that. I fill gaps here. Mysteries resolved, errant strands connected, fallacies revealed and dispelled. Many note the eccentric skew of my viewpoints, but they view through the wrong end of the tube. I'm finding fresh explanations, and fresh explanations feel ghostly. They're slippery and eery, and reside far outside our comfort zones. What's comfortable? Ignorance and conformity! But I can't let a status quo sit undisturbed. It's not my nature.

By filling chasms, I become chasm. Inhabiting blind spots, I disappear. While I amiably chatter away, dissuading trepidation and normalizing epiphany, my form dissolves. I'm playing for the other team, or so it seems, in whichever game people might be playing.

I don't say the usual things people say in a world where billions say the same 20 things over and over. I do have conventional thoughts, but I don't feel compelled to offer them, lacking any compulsion to be the Guy saying the Thing; to stick my face into a cut-out and holler "Woah, look at me! I'm that guy! Now it's me saying it!"

No, I pitch in the other stuff. The missing stuff. The unsaid. But as I do so, the stuff remains missing...and I join it! Tail wagged, I fade, though I couldn't feel more vibrantly right here.

The goal was never to be recognized as The Guy Who Supplies Missing Pieces. It's not about me. I work like an ant, eagerly offering sand grains, one after another. Ideally, those efforts would offer people a sense of fullness. Yelpers complaining ignorantly about the greasiness of a Sichuan restaurant might download my cheap, fun-to-use app and quickly get up to speed re: eating in any sort of restaurant. Slog readers behold credible new takes on vexing mysteries. These, along with other efforts (Chowhound being a monumental exception), failed. I'm not embittered, just confused.

But I've had an epiphany: I'm standing on an enormous empty landmass watching a small iceberg crowded with innumerable people drifting away. And, to them, I'm drifting (insofar as they notice). And neither framing, of course, is "right".

So allow me to address my childhood self, who embarked on this experiment. He's sent me many useful notes and reminders (catalogued here), and now I'll toss one back at him, reporting results. Here goes:
Associating oneself with missing chunks doesn't fill gaps, no matter how insightful or ingenious the effort. On the contrary, it makes you a missing chunk! Illuminating the invisible leaves you invisible.

But, most of all: severing from preposterous drama leaves you offstage.

If you're sincere enough to not be merely playing an offstage character as a conceit, congrats for your sincerity, but it means you've vanished. The show happens on-stage, buddy. And you can't separate from it without appearing to separate from it.