Friday, April 30, 2021
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Winners
I need something quite a lot. And there's someone in my life who is in a position to provide it to me with zero trouble, expense, or sacrifice.
If you could blink or wipe your nose or say "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers!" and appreciably help another human being, presumably you'd do it. Hell, I've made greater effort and sacrifice to help people more meagerly, but that doesn't count. I'm talking about no-skin/no-sweat assistance. Save a puppy via a finger snap. Cure cancer with a coin toss.
If I ask for it, she won't refuse me outright. But she will subject me to a long interrogation about potential blowback and risk on her end (there's obviously none). She will take time to consider the matter, and, as she does, I'll be at her disposal for various requests, plus a generous flow of nonsense talk, since we're now buddies. Finally, she may well say "no". Or else she'll say "yes" and soon screw it all up via stupidity, incompetence, or clever effort to turn it into something even better. I can't even begin to list the potential snafus. This is simply not fated to happen, so I won't even mention it. Involving her in anything leads unavoidably to pain and despair. Even something so easy and so urgent.
I explained to him that there are people who are responsive. If you need something, they will help if convenient. They have situational awareness and a can-do attitude. At least some part of their focus goes to obliging small needs arising around them. It's not generosity, per se. There may be very tight limits on what they're willing to lose to help you to win. But you can certainly borrow their rake, and they'll drive you if you're going their way, and if they're throwing it out anyway, of course you can have it! To some limited degree they're there for other people. But this person, I explained to my friend, simply isn't one of those people.
She is the type of person who removes every last nickel from her car's change drawer before handing it off to the carwash guy - god forbid someone should steal 35¢ - when, of course, no worker would ever steal change because that's the prime thing you don't do if you want to keep your job in the car wash...so, facing like a .1% chance of losing 35¢, she eliminates the risk via 50¢ worth of inconvenience, scooping the mound of change into her overstuffed pocket, scuffing up her iPhone, and then forgetting to replace it so a few days later she finds herself at a parking meter or toll booth for which she has no quarters.
Such blinkered, selfish, tight, grasping, difficult people think they're strategic. They feel smart. They're on the fast track to victory, while slovenly dopes like me let the carwash guys steal my change. That's where slackness gets you!
Oddly, these victory-minded people never seem to win. It's obvious to everyone but them. They go to their graves clutching their bottle caps and Hershey's kisses; so occupied with defending their cheap dog toys that they let decades go by without taking a single step forward.
I once observed that control freaks are seldom worthy of the control they demand. There's something about incompetence that compels control. It reminds me of how this person never seems to come out ahead, even though she's never once failed to put herself first. All that calculation and selfishness and pain infliction...for what???
I don't mind being cut off by BMWs, but I can go into a blind fury when it's someone driving an old terrible car.
The predatory BMW driver has made a life choice at great moral, social and spiritual cost. But at least he has something to show for it. He has his pyrrhic victory.
But if you're driving a 1986 Ford Escort belching black smoke and you don't give a crap about anyone but yourself, why haven't you noticed that your predatory selfishness isn't working??? You're paying all the rich guy costs with none of the reward! You just scared the bejesus out of me and made me crush my brakes so you could ply the high-handed ruthlessness which bought you that sweet $800 ride? Really?
I can grok the notion of disregarding the needs of others so you can concentrate on WINNING. But if it's not working, what's the point? Screwing the world to gain advantage is competition. Screwing the world for kicks is sadism. It's a whole other thing. A much worse thing.
I once drove a 1986 Ford Escort belching black smoke, usually en route to a gig playing swinging music, or trying some other tribe's cuisine. I was having more fun and a richer life experience than most drivers ensconsed in their Beemers, so I felt no shame whatsoever. What's more, I enjoyed the perqs of non-predation. Victorious in my poverty and intact in my morality: win-win!
Assholes who cut you off in cheap cars? Lose-lose!
If you could blink or wipe your nose or say "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers!" and appreciably help another human being, presumably you'd do it. Hell, I've made greater effort and sacrifice to help people more meagerly, but that doesn't count. I'm talking about no-skin/no-sweat assistance. Save a puppy via a finger snap. Cure cancer with a coin toss.
If I ask for it, she won't refuse me outright. But she will subject me to a long interrogation about potential blowback and risk on her end (there's obviously none). She will take time to consider the matter, and, as she does, I'll be at her disposal for various requests, plus a generous flow of nonsense talk, since we're now buddies. Finally, she may well say "no". Or else she'll say "yes" and soon screw it all up via stupidity, incompetence, or clever effort to turn it into something even better. I can't even begin to list the potential snafus. This is simply not fated to happen, so I won't even mention it. Involving her in anything leads unavoidably to pain and despair. Even something so easy and so urgent.
This is the sort of absolutist, cocksure statement that would have offended my eight-year-old self. When I was just a child - six or seven or seven-and-a-half years old - I was absolutist and cocksure about people. Nasty people were nasty and dumb people were dumb. Show me either behavior and I'd dismiss you as incorrigible. But then, as a more worldly eight-year-old, I had a wiser and more nuanced view. No one's all one thing! There are shades of grey! Heck, I myself might seem nasty or dumb at any given time. We must be more forgiving and less judgemental. No one is perfect, but nobody's incorrigible, either.A friend was incredulous. Why on earth wouldn't I ask this person to do this unbelievably easy thing that would have such tremendous impact on my life?
By age 42 (after managing a million people on the Internet), I'd reverted to my original perspective. Fuck-ups fuck up, period. They just do. Malevolent people don't errantly stumble into malevolence; it's their framing. Same for selfish people. It's truly black and white. There are no shades of grey.
I explained to him that there are people who are responsive. If you need something, they will help if convenient. They have situational awareness and a can-do attitude. At least some part of their focus goes to obliging small needs arising around them. It's not generosity, per se. There may be very tight limits on what they're willing to lose to help you to win. But you can certainly borrow their rake, and they'll drive you if you're going their way, and if they're throwing it out anyway, of course you can have it! To some limited degree they're there for other people. But this person, I explained to my friend, simply isn't one of those people.
She is the type of person who removes every last nickel from her car's change drawer before handing it off to the carwash guy - god forbid someone should steal 35¢ - when, of course, no worker would ever steal change because that's the prime thing you don't do if you want to keep your job in the car wash...so, facing like a .1% chance of losing 35¢, she eliminates the risk via 50¢ worth of inconvenience, scooping the mound of change into her overstuffed pocket, scuffing up her iPhone, and then forgetting to replace it so a few days later she finds herself at a parking meter or toll booth for which she has no quarters.
Such blinkered, selfish, tight, grasping, difficult people think they're strategic. They feel smart. They're on the fast track to victory, while slovenly dopes like me let the carwash guys steal my change. That's where slackness gets you!
Oddly, these victory-minded people never seem to win. It's obvious to everyone but them. They go to their graves clutching their bottle caps and Hershey's kisses; so occupied with defending their cheap dog toys that they let decades go by without taking a single step forward.
I once observed that control freaks are seldom worthy of the control they demand. There's something about incompetence that compels control. It reminds me of how this person never seems to come out ahead, even though she's never once failed to put herself first. All that calculation and selfishness and pain infliction...for what???
I don't mind being cut off by BMWs, but I can go into a blind fury when it's someone driving an old terrible car.
The predatory BMW driver has made a life choice at great moral, social and spiritual cost. But at least he has something to show for it. He has his pyrrhic victory.
But if you're driving a 1986 Ford Escort belching black smoke and you don't give a crap about anyone but yourself, why haven't you noticed that your predatory selfishness isn't working??? You're paying all the rich guy costs with none of the reward! You just scared the bejesus out of me and made me crush my brakes so you could ply the high-handed ruthlessness which bought you that sweet $800 ride? Really?
I can grok the notion of disregarding the needs of others so you can concentrate on WINNING. But if it's not working, what's the point? Screwing the world to gain advantage is competition. Screwing the world for kicks is sadism. It's a whole other thing. A much worse thing.
I once drove a 1986 Ford Escort belching black smoke, usually en route to a gig playing swinging music, or trying some other tribe's cuisine. I was having more fun and a richer life experience than most drivers ensconsed in their Beemers, so I felt no shame whatsoever. What's more, I enjoyed the perqs of non-predation. Victorious in my poverty and intact in my morality: win-win!
Assholes who cut you off in cheap cars? Lose-lose!
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
The Middle Path: Revenge of the Puddy Puds
Facebook comment re: my previous posting ("The Middle Path is Sneaky Magic"):
Further reading: Cathy Whimsically Chooses to be Unhappy
Man I’ve been striving for that middle!My reply:
You can't get to the middle by striving for it. You get there via the improv comedy mantra of "Yes, and...." I.e. blithely accept the cards as they're dealt.
We live in a society where every 2 year old is endlessly quizzed on his likes/dislikes ("Greggy LIKES the brownie! Greggy LIKES the brownie!"). By adulthood, we identify ourselves by the stuff we dislike, eschew, object to, and/or are allergic to. The rejection of vast swathes is what fuels tribalism, and eventually leads to extremism (a burning of all bridges to rejected swathes).
The thing no one tells you is you can embrace it all (without losing a bit of discernment). In this society, it makes you look like a pud, but, shhh, puds win.
The jolly, turd-ish pud can do this or that. Go up or down, left or right. He enjoys a delirious spectrum of options in all things, with all bridges to all realms of reality fully intact.
Further reading: Cathy Whimsically Chooses to be Unhappy
Monday, April 26, 2021
The Middle Path is Sneaky Magic
I'm the only person I know who cooks healthy - whole grains, limited salt and saturated fat- but who enjoys a wide, diverse diet, overall. Most people who're careful are ascetic crazies who never have any fun and would eat barbed wire before touching a plate of mofungo. And most people who eat as widely and diversely as I do know no restraint. They salt their pizza and they're sweaty and they clutch with alarm at their gall bladders and they figure I'm a monk or whatever. Brown rice? Really?
Chowhounds don't grok my discipline, but ascetics can't grok my brio. Both view me as transgressive, even though I'm evidently coming out the winner.
It's very much like my politics. Centrism means antagonizing absolutely everyone. As I wrote here, the mask thing was rough for me.
My savings are mostly in conservative index funds. Prudent! But a small slice goes into highly speculative stocks (mostly biotech). I've made far more profit from that small slice - it wags the dog - but my luck could change one day. And that would be ok because the majority is safe. Friends see my high-risk investing and warn me to be more conservative. It breaks their brains to consider that most of my savings are invested grandma-style. It doesn't compute; people who do that don't do this, and people who do this don't do that!
Nobody seems able to grok a "this and that" proposition. The Middle Path is like magic. No one can see it, no one can understand it, but it's like a secret weapon for yielding good results. I eat well, and am only slightly overweight (after a sedentary year due to foot injury). I've enjoyed Lotto-ish success from some investments (e.g. bought this in November) while also sleeping comfortably. And I never did get COVID, though I got out of the house plenty.
The weirdest thing is that I'm oddly heterosexual. Tempermentally, I probably ought to straddle the line. But I'm just not a fan of male anatomy. An aesthetic call.
Chowhounds don't grok my discipline, but ascetics can't grok my brio. Both view me as transgressive, even though I'm evidently coming out the winner.
It's very much like my politics. Centrism means antagonizing absolutely everyone. As I wrote here, the mask thing was rough for me.
The assistant manager of my local supermarket goes maskless, standing inches away from cashiers (who don't dare complain) while waiting to switch out cash drawers. I try to stay clear while he swaggers down the middle of aisles. Spotting me, with my mask (always worn indoors), recoiling from his passage, he probably thinks "liberal pussy".I'm just following science! Mask indoors, no mask outdoors, where there's huge air flow. There's no inconsistency, just rationality. So why can't anyone else seem to color within those bright lines? The "sane man in an insane world" is a cliché, but the Middle Path is perennially alien.
Outdoors, I walk with a neighbor up our sleepy lane. We maintain the required distance, but do not wear masks. Sometimes we pass tremulous neighbors in enormous masks and astronaut gloves, clearly terrified/furious at the transgressive MAGA brutes despite the extra space we politely give them.
My savings are mostly in conservative index funds. Prudent! But a small slice goes into highly speculative stocks (mostly biotech). I've made far more profit from that small slice - it wags the dog - but my luck could change one day. And that would be ok because the majority is safe. Friends see my high-risk investing and warn me to be more conservative. It breaks their brains to consider that most of my savings are invested grandma-style. It doesn't compute; people who do that don't do this, and people who do this don't do that!
Nobody seems able to grok a "this and that" proposition. The Middle Path is like magic. No one can see it, no one can understand it, but it's like a secret weapon for yielding good results. I eat well, and am only slightly overweight (after a sedentary year due to foot injury). I've enjoyed Lotto-ish success from some investments (e.g. bought this in November) while also sleeping comfortably. And I never did get COVID, though I got out of the house plenty.
The weirdest thing is that I'm oddly heterosexual. Tempermentally, I probably ought to straddle the line. But I'm just not a fan of male anatomy. An aesthetic call.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Oh Christ, No, Jim; Not the Piano Smash Thing Again
A couple of postings ago, I wrote:
A “piano smash” is when you mash down all the piano keys with your forearms, so every note's been struck. In the cacophonous din, one can listen for any song and hear it. Not imagine hearing it, but actually hear it via a converse sort of perception, antithetical to what we're used to.
As your attention chooses among the static array - every possible note at once - an illusion of dynamism, of movement, of change, of passing time arises, and you can hear Mozart's Piano Fourth Concerto or Brubeck's Take Five, in any key you’d like, and at any tempo. All the music you've ever known or imagined can be heard (not imagined; actually heard!) as your attention tunes in among the din. External music arises from choices of internal attention...i.e. reframing. We “tune it in” via our selection.
It's been widely noted that the mind can't help but find order amid random chaos. That's the closest mankind has gotten to the truth, which is that the universe actually is a piano smash. All "notes" are pre-struck; a preset availability of infinite possibilities from which we pick and choose, creating the illusion of external dynamism, of movement, of change, of time, and of This and That. We tune everything in via our selection. Picking out melodies amid a piano smash isn't some odd way of perceiving. It's how all our senses work all the time. Nothing out there moves, nothing changes, nothing exists right here/right now until you've tuned in with your attention. And we have infinite latitude because, again, all notes are struck. We choose from infinity.
If an infinity of framings is available, why do certain patterns, e.g. your cousin Gary, persist, presenting the impression of fixed solidity?
Habit. Attention - the aware consciousness that is what you actually are - develops habitual framings, and so we appear to exist within solid and semi-predictable surroundings (it's an illusion created by our propensity for abstraction). If we allow ourselves to grind down into utter tedium, we experience the narrowed prison of frozen perspective, where the world, as we tune it, appears to become stuck; a frozen, dreary, single thing, very unpleasant. Life becomes untenable, and that's what depression is. If we habitually/obsessively latch on to one single framing, the world correspondingly congeals into tedious lifelessness.
But we are always free to shift perspective. This faculty is the fabled prime mover. It makes the external world arise - a neat trick! - but if it fixates, it can also make the world freeze. The choice is yours: either delight (all framings are delightful, exactly as all film genres are entertaining; you needn’t conjure up a particularly “nice” one; just remain lithe!) , or else the torment of frozen perspective. Heaven and Hell are both a matter of framing. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Read more deeper implications of framing in this challenging series of posts (previously linked to above), which started off as an attempt to explain something unrelated (but also interesting). Spoiler alert: we traverse the multiverse via our shifting attention. That's what framing actually is/does. Static snapshots consecutively selected by internal placement of attention create the illusion of external dynamism; of time and space. Much like picking melodies out of a piano smash.
It seems unfathomable and mysterious, but sit, one day, at a piano, smash the keyboard, and tune into "Hey, Jude". You'll find it’s not strange at all, even though no one's playing it! For a more convenient - but more limited (only two options!) - taste, contemplate the optical illusion here. That’s framing, baby.
None of this is weird. It's all intimately familiar. It's just not how we've been conditioned to conceive of it. A fish doesn't realize it's swimming. He'd scoff if you tried to explain about water and fins! Wild stuff; crazy intellectual theories! :)
Perceptual framing is not "positive thinking". It's not about concocting a hopeful story to help you stoically endure your bleak reality. It's not crutches or blinders or rose-colored glasses. It's about keeping your perspective lithe enough that you can contemplate at least a few of the infinite angles, and select one that's beautiful and truthful. Just because some life development seems to evoke a soundtrack of mournful violins, you are not obliged to gratuitously load The Film of Woe into your personal projector. You get to choose the film! It's your projector! Everything happening - the entire whirlwind - is nothing but fodder for you to frame per your caprice. That's what we're here for. You're free!I've backed off of discussing the deeper aspects of this framing business, because when I tried going there, 75% of Slog readers left, permanently. But for any newbies who weren't around for those glory days, let me note that "choosing the film", can be understood metaphorically (where it's comparatively comfortable), or it can be taken a bit more literally, which is so spookily counterintuitive that explanatory efforts chased away virtually everyone. But, hey, why not briefly re-pick that scab? I've been offering loads of cherry blossoms and food porn lately, so indulge me for a minute!
A “piano smash” is when you mash down all the piano keys with your forearms, so every note's been struck. In the cacophonous din, one can listen for any song and hear it. Not imagine hearing it, but actually hear it via a converse sort of perception, antithetical to what we're used to.
As your attention chooses among the static array - every possible note at once - an illusion of dynamism, of movement, of change, of passing time arises, and you can hear Mozart's Piano Fourth Concerto or Brubeck's Take Five, in any key you’d like, and at any tempo. All the music you've ever known or imagined can be heard (not imagined; actually heard!) as your attention tunes in among the din. External music arises from choices of internal attention...i.e. reframing. We “tune it in” via our selection.
It's been widely noted that the mind can't help but find order amid random chaos. That's the closest mankind has gotten to the truth, which is that the universe actually is a piano smash. All "notes" are pre-struck; a preset availability of infinite possibilities from which we pick and choose, creating the illusion of external dynamism, of movement, of change, of time, and of This and That. We tune everything in via our selection. Picking out melodies amid a piano smash isn't some odd way of perceiving. It's how all our senses work all the time. Nothing out there moves, nothing changes, nothing exists right here/right now until you've tuned in with your attention. And we have infinite latitude because, again, all notes are struck. We choose from infinity.
If an infinity of framings is available, why do certain patterns, e.g. your cousin Gary, persist, presenting the impression of fixed solidity?
Habit. Attention - the aware consciousness that is what you actually are - develops habitual framings, and so we appear to exist within solid and semi-predictable surroundings (it's an illusion created by our propensity for abstraction). If we allow ourselves to grind down into utter tedium, we experience the narrowed prison of frozen perspective, where the world, as we tune it, appears to become stuck; a frozen, dreary, single thing, very unpleasant. Life becomes untenable, and that's what depression is. If we habitually/obsessively latch on to one single framing, the world correspondingly congeals into tedious lifelessness.
But we are always free to shift perspective. This faculty is the fabled prime mover. It makes the external world arise - a neat trick! - but if it fixates, it can also make the world freeze. The choice is yours: either delight (all framings are delightful, exactly as all film genres are entertaining; you needn’t conjure up a particularly “nice” one; just remain lithe!) , or else the torment of frozen perspective. Heaven and Hell are both a matter of framing. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Read more deeper implications of framing in this challenging series of posts (previously linked to above), which started off as an attempt to explain something unrelated (but also interesting). Spoiler alert: we traverse the multiverse via our shifting attention. That's what framing actually is/does. Static snapshots consecutively selected by internal placement of attention create the illusion of external dynamism; of time and space. Much like picking melodies out of a piano smash.
It seems unfathomable and mysterious, but sit, one day, at a piano, smash the keyboard, and tune into "Hey, Jude". You'll find it’s not strange at all, even though no one's playing it! For a more convenient - but more limited (only two options!) - taste, contemplate the optical illusion here. That’s framing, baby.
None of this is weird. It's all intimately familiar. It's just not how we've been conditioned to conceive of it. A fish doesn't realize it's swimming. He'd scoff if you tried to explain about water and fins! Wild stuff; crazy intellectual theories! :)
You're Old as Hell
Friday, April 23, 2021
The Physicist Fisherman and the Dreaming Mogul
I'm watching an excellent movie, "Cuban Food Stories", directed by a Cuban-American immigrant who returned to suss out vanishing regional cuisines. You can watch it for free on Kanopy, a streaming channel often available through local libraries. You can also rent it for $5 on Amazon or on Apple. Good review here from Food & Wine.
One part of the film introduces a grungy-looking guy, the latest in a long family line of fishermen. But he’d been destined for better things. He'd studied hard in school, and when the Soviets planned to build a nuclear power plant in Cuba, the Cubans educated him to a PhD level in nuclear physics so he could work there. But the Soviet Union imploded, the reactor was never completed, and this guy, needing to feed his family, stepped onto the family boat and got fishing. You'd never guess any of this background to watch him. He seems like just another grungy fisherman. But then he told the following story which shows that his intelligence has not been wasted after all. He’s used it to figure out the key to human life:
It's about keeping your perspective lithe enough that you can contemplate at least a few of the infinite angles, and select one that's beautiful and truthful. Just because some life development seems to evoke a soundtrack of mournful violins, you are not obliged to gratuitously load The Film of Woe into your personal projector. You get to choose the film! It's your projector! Everything happening - the entire whirlwind - is nothing but fodder for you to frame per your caprice. That's what we're here for. You're free!
After all the stuff that's happened that you'd previously declared Unacceptable and Impossible to Contemplate, here you still are! Still you! Same you as ever! Nothing actually happened, aside from the ordeal of your framings, and you could have framed any of it any way you'd liked! Pain is inevitable, but suffering's optional!
One part of the film introduces a grungy-looking guy, the latest in a long family line of fishermen. But he’d been destined for better things. He'd studied hard in school, and when the Soviets planned to build a nuclear power plant in Cuba, the Cubans educated him to a PhD level in nuclear physics so he could work there. But the Soviet Union imploded, the reactor was never completed, and this guy, needing to feed his family, stepped onto the family boat and got fishing. You'd never guess any of this background to watch him. He seems like just another grungy fisherman. But then he told the following story which shows that his intelligence has not been wasted after all. He’s used it to figure out the key to human life:
I once read an article where a great entrepreneur was asked "With all the money you have, why do you work so hard?“Perceptual framing is not "positive thinking". It's not about concocting a hopeful story to help you stoically endure your bleak reality. It's not crutches or blinders or rose-colored glasses.
“To make my dream come true,“ he answered.
“What dream?“
“To live on an island in the Caribbean in a little house near the sea with a boat so I can take my family fishing.”
It's about keeping your perspective lithe enough that you can contemplate at least a few of the infinite angles, and select one that's beautiful and truthful. Just because some life development seems to evoke a soundtrack of mournful violins, you are not obliged to gratuitously load The Film of Woe into your personal projector. You get to choose the film! It's your projector! Everything happening - the entire whirlwind - is nothing but fodder for you to frame per your caprice. That's what we're here for. You're free!
After all the stuff that's happened that you'd previously declared Unacceptable and Impossible to Contemplate, here you still are! Still you! Same you as ever! Nothing actually happened, aside from the ordeal of your framings, and you could have framed any of it any way you'd liked! Pain is inevitable, but suffering's optional!
Leave a person in a quiet room, and he might meditate and one day leave in a state of vast peace. Put some bars on the window and the same person might decay into a debilitated wreck.
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
LEFFtovers: Oniony Ravioli
6 Trader Joe's Beef Bolognese Ravioli
Half an onion
Straggly few fancy salad greens
Ecuadorian hot sauce
"What's with all the Ecuadorian hot sauce?" you might understandably wonder. There's an Ecuadoran rotissierie joint near me I hit once per week, and always ask for extra sauce. So there are always some small containers in my fridge. Ecuadoran hot sauce is creamy, like Peruvian ají, but more vegetal. It combines well, and I'm always looking for excuses to use it up.I wanted to do this but had no tomatos.
So I roughly chopped the onion, and sautéd with lots of black pepper. Near the end, I added the greens atop, letting them wilt. Meanwhile I briefly re-boiled the ravioli to reheat them, drained the pot, splashed the hot sauce in the pot, then added the ravioli/onion/greens, stirring violently for a few seconds.
Friday, April 16, 2021
Vaccine Holdouts
Society is rapidly cleaving into two groups: the vaccinated, who are largely safe from Covid infection and almost completely safe from dangerous Covid symptoms (i.e. they can still, rarely, catch it, but symptoms resemble any very minor respiratory infection), and the unvaccinated, who remain in danger.
My first impulse re: vaccine refusers is to wearily shrug. Like with seatbelts, I do the smarter thing, so I get to enjoy the safety. They could easily be safe, too, so this just represents Darwin at work, expunging the demented and the obtuse from the gene pool.
But there's a different way to frame it. If someone in my life joined a cult and was convinced to move to Guyana and drink poisoned lemonade to die en masse with the Dear Leader, I wouldn't be thinking about Darwin and gene pools. I'd be thinking "tragedy". Brain washing really happens. And ignorance. And stupid obstinacy. Actions have consequences, just as we teach our kids, but the penalty ought not be death. This isn't a cartoon. The 500 ton weight falling on the foolish coyote shouldn't be a real world "LOL".
The big problem with Covid (which nobody mentions because it's inconvenient) is also Covid's great blessing: it's not Smallpox. It infects only a few percent, and kills only a few percent of them. So the people who've been socializing in maskless crowds and refusing vaccine very likely won't die, making the feedback mechanism loose and floppy, and organisms don't learn efficiently from loose, floppy feedback. French kissing strangers probably won't kill you, and such spotty feedback spurs only spotty learning at best. Covid perches diabolically on the razor's edge: too tame to easily compel full compliance, yet too perilous to ignore. That's the big problem with Covid.
Of course, it's horrendously poor risk-assessment to tempt fate even within this grey area. But we don't need to winnow poor risk assessors from the gene pool. Even if they tend to wear red hats, holler dumb political slogans, and support deranged con men.
Here's the best pitch I've managed to brew up for folks on the fence re: vaccines (nothing works with staunch anti-vax loudmouths):
I'm safe either way. I don't need herd immunity, I've got personal immunity. And I've arranged vaccination appointments for a number of local immigrants with lousy English skills. And I've used my well-polished line of persuasion on all the holdouts I know. But I refuse to shrug and invoke Darwin.
From my long-awaited safe harbor of personal safety, here's how I frame it: ignorance, brain washing, and obstinacy can, alas, be fatal, and these are essentially cult victims. So I, myself, am reminded to be less rigid, less proud of my contrarian tendencies, and more wary of my own poor judgement.
Most of all, like an acrophobic near a cliff, I detect and fear my propensity to fall. I recognize that a person can immerse so deeply into a story he tells himself that he misses the reality right before his eyes. Even as a reframing specialist, I don't always immediately shake off every story that's outlived reality.
Just as a lagniappe, I believe a lot of the vaccine holdouts are extra scared. Scared just in general, and particularly frightened of Covid. That may seem senseless, but have you ever hit the accelerator when you were lost (if you even remember "getting lost", before the age of GPS)? It's the same impulse. The assertion of control - any control, including counterproductive - feels, for many people, like their only backstop from the yawing abyss. This is why very old, very sick, very confused people often argue tenaciously with their doctors. They are proving to themselves that they retain autonomy. It feels like a higher priority than not dying.
My first impulse re: vaccine refusers is to wearily shrug. Like with seatbelts, I do the smarter thing, so I get to enjoy the safety. They could easily be safe, too, so this just represents Darwin at work, expunging the demented and the obtuse from the gene pool.
But there's a different way to frame it. If someone in my life joined a cult and was convinced to move to Guyana and drink poisoned lemonade to die en masse with the Dear Leader, I wouldn't be thinking about Darwin and gene pools. I'd be thinking "tragedy". Brain washing really happens. And ignorance. And stupid obstinacy. Actions have consequences, just as we teach our kids, but the penalty ought not be death. This isn't a cartoon. The 500 ton weight falling on the foolish coyote shouldn't be a real world "LOL".
The big problem with Covid (which nobody mentions because it's inconvenient) is also Covid's great blessing: it's not Smallpox. It infects only a few percent, and kills only a few percent of them. So the people who've been socializing in maskless crowds and refusing vaccine very likely won't die, making the feedback mechanism loose and floppy, and organisms don't learn efficiently from loose, floppy feedback. French kissing strangers probably won't kill you, and such spotty feedback spurs only spotty learning at best. Covid perches diabolically on the razor's edge: too tame to easily compel full compliance, yet too perilous to ignore. That's the big problem with Covid.
Of course, it's horrendously poor risk-assessment to tempt fate even within this grey area. But we don't need to winnow poor risk assessors from the gene pool. Even if they tend to wear red hats, holler dumb political slogans, and support deranged con men.
Here's the best pitch I've managed to brew up for folks on the fence re: vaccines (nothing works with staunch anti-vax loudmouths):
"Look, I'm not going to flood you with facts and information, and I won't call you names or try to make you feel dumb, but I'd really hate to lose you, and Covid's bad, and the vaccines work great. I got the shot, and it was a beautiful experience and now I feel safe. I'd be much happier if you were safe, too. We need good people here. We can't afford people like you dying needlessly. Please reconsider."That works - a little - if someone's on the fence. Treat them not like skeptics, who just need to hear some sense, but like potential suicides. Treat them like people standing on a skyscraper window ledge. This approach - this framing - resonates.
I'm safe either way. I don't need herd immunity, I've got personal immunity. And I've arranged vaccination appointments for a number of local immigrants with lousy English skills. And I've used my well-polished line of persuasion on all the holdouts I know. But I refuse to shrug and invoke Darwin.
From my long-awaited safe harbor of personal safety, here's how I frame it: ignorance, brain washing, and obstinacy can, alas, be fatal, and these are essentially cult victims. So I, myself, am reminded to be less rigid, less proud of my contrarian tendencies, and more wary of my own poor judgement.
Most of all, like an acrophobic near a cliff, I detect and fear my propensity to fall. I recognize that a person can immerse so deeply into a story he tells himself that he misses the reality right before his eyes. Even as a reframing specialist, I don't always immediately shake off every story that's outlived reality.
Just as a lagniappe, I believe a lot of the vaccine holdouts are extra scared. Scared just in general, and particularly frightened of Covid. That may seem senseless, but have you ever hit the accelerator when you were lost (if you even remember "getting lost", before the age of GPS)? It's the same impulse. The assertion of control - any control, including counterproductive - feels, for many people, like their only backstop from the yawing abyss. This is why very old, very sick, very confused people often argue tenaciously with their doctors. They are proving to themselves that they retain autonomy. It feels like a higher priority than not dying.
Thursday, April 15, 2021
More Cherry Blossoms
Same trees, new day, fresh angles (i.e. tap-dancing while waiting for the other trees to wake up):
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