Getting out of the eyeball

I've been trying to focus on the world outside my car while commuting to work, and trying to avoid daydreaming while I drive. It's impossible. I'm amazed that the roads aren't a pinball ride of cars colliding with each other as distracted drivers lose track of the outside world.

It doesn't take much effort to start attending to the road and its surroundings, but within seconds I fall into mindless musing; some time later I suddenly realize that I'm no longer paying attention to the world in front of my eyeballs. I slide into the world behind my eyeballs, driving along on autopilot.

In the few seconds that I can attend to the world outside the glass, I'm almost overwhelmed by the richness and detail. What a wonderful world, no matter if it's a tree-lined street, a busy freeway, or a commercial strip. There are endless fascinating discoveries: For example, I noticed some black wires strung along the cantilever holding some traffic lights. Looking along the pole I realized there were two tiny video cameras mounted on every boom; looking around, I then noticed that all the traffic lights at that intersection were similarly equipped.

But my seeing is constantly superseded by mental busywork. It's not the clear productive thinking that happens in a focused time. It's a flux of half-thoughts that live in the limbo between the front of my eyes, and the mind behind. It's even worse when the radio is on; not only am I pulled between the scenery and my thoughts, but the entertainment drags my attention sideways.

That productive, sustained thinking is, it turns out, just as hard for me as sustained concentration on the outside world. It's perhaps even harder: there's less to focus on when thinking, and I have to make the world, not just drink it in.

I find that sketching is a useful aid to seeing. Drawing well isn't the point; sketching guides and fixes my attention on what I'm seeing, and stops me slipping into half-seeing and half-musing. Clicking away with a camera is the antithesis of drawing; the camera is itself a limbo eye. It's interposed between me and the world, and it's a proxy in which the reality of the world is lost. I'm not looking at something; I'm looking at its image in the viewfinder. I'm not thinking deeply; I'm thinking about how to frame something. Clicking the image is a proxy for really looking, or really thinking.

(That's not to say that photography cannot be an aid to seeing - but it must be used as such. I imagine that a practice that involves thinking about how to frame the image, taking it, and then post-processing the result in the darkroom or in software is a discipline as fruitful as drawing.)

I will persevere. I used to switch on the radio reflexively whenever I got in the car; nowadays I prefer to drive in silence. That step led to this goal of simply looking outside the windscreen, rather than oscillating mindlessly between the world and the mind. Buddhists refer to the relentless chatter of pointless thinking as "monkey mind"; softly softly catchee monkey...

Almost as good as dying

I've been sharing my decision to leave my current employ with co-workers and colleagues. Their kind words have been deeply touching, to the point that I risk an ego-out-of-bounds error. People couldn't have been nicer if they'd been asked to speak at a funeral.

That's the hardest part of leaving this job: all these wonderful people. I'm excited about what's coming next, but I will surely miss the company of this world class group of thinkers and doers and just downright nice people.

Horrible dilemmas

Impossible dilemmas are the stuff of tragic drama, ethics courses, and Zen. They are only too easy to find. Today's: the Wall Street Journal notes in passing that "drivers are tied into suicide car bombs, a sign of coercion," according to US commanders in Iraq.

I don't know how the coercion works, but it's all too easy to imagine. Let's say someone tied me into car, and told me that I was going to die when it exploded. I did have a choice, however; if I exploded it at the target of their choice, my loved one - who they'd taken hostage - would live. If I tried to minimize the damage by driving elsewhere, my beloved would die.

What would you do?

I think I would try to limit the death toll. Since there is no guarantee that they would keep their word and not kill my beloved if I did what they wished, and since she would want to spare as much life as possible, I would resist their designs.

But what if it were not just one loved one, but my whole family? What is my value calculus of known vs. Unknown people?

The Rosary, iPod and aerobics

Diarmid MacCullough attributes the fifteenth century rise of the Rosary to two factors [1]:

1. It was a physical object: a reassuringly concrete holy possession, a personal relic that the even the poorest person could afford.
2. The Rosary devotion constituted a religious practice for lay people that was as structured, corporate and intense as that which might be found in a religious community.

The iPod is a contemporary reminder of the talismanic power of things. Many cyber-enthusiasts proclaim the primacy of the bit over the atom; since anything can be represented digitally, they imply, the dirt world is an inconvenient and ideally optional extra.

That's not how humans seem to be wired, though. The physical world is the armature of our dreams, not an inconvenient carapace [2]. It matters what one's MP3 player looks like, and feels like in the hand; the quality of the music it pipes into your ears is the equi-perfect, digital commodity you could get equally well from a cheapo knock-off.

I'm sure many teens today will think back nostalgically to their first mobile or iPod in the same way that I remember my first HP calculator. Sure, the fact that it used Reverse Polish had geek chic, but it was the heft and the Mercedes-like click of the keys that have remained with me ever since.

As for structured communal practice: I'm perplexed by the lack of collective ritual among secular moderns. History and anthropology would suggest that meaningful, shared activities are part of being human, and yet individuality and divergence is the norm in the Blue states. The closest we've come in the last few decades is aerobics and occasional dance crazes (remember the Macarena?). Europe and the US Coasts are probably due for another simulacrum of a communal religious activity - though if disco and tae bo are the kind of thing we're in for, I'm happy to wait.

-----

[1] Diarmid MacCullough, The Reformation, Viking 2003, Chapter 7, p. 319

[2] Anthony Damasio argues in Descartes' Error that emotion plays a central role in being rational. In a similar way, I would guess that physical action is essential for abstract thinking. I vaguely recall reading about some studies that linked gesture to narrative: if you tied someone's arms to their chair, they couldn't remember the details of story they were being asked to retell.

Loyola and vipassana

Diarmid MacCulloch's wonderful history, The Reformation [1], describes Ignatius Loyola's epiphany in terms that remind me powerfully of the vipassana practice of Buddhism:

"Using his powerful imagination to extract every ounce of meaning from [the old-fashioned devotional classics he was reading during a long and excruciating convalescence], Inigo [Loyola] transformed his inner life. He was increasingly empowered to comprehend his own reactions to the books, his shifting enthusiasms, the motivations behind them. He was developing an extraordinary ability to analyze the workings of the mind and the emotions, an ability he described as the "discernment of spirits", a traditional term used by a confessor or spiritual director."

"Soon, amid many false starts, disappointments, and changes of direction, in a painful and poverty-stricken search to understand his new call to divine service, Loyola was beginning to note down his changing spiritual experiences. This was the raw material for a systematically organized guide to prayer, self-examination, and surrender to the divine power; he soon began using the system with other people, and it reached a papally approved final form in print in 1548 as the Spiritual Exercises [2]."

There is a curious resonance with the vipassana approach to Buddhist meditation. I'm currently reading a wonderful book on the topic by Bhante Gunaratana [3] (available on-line). Compare Loyola's techniques to analyze the workings of the mind with these observations by Gunaratana:

"The meditation technique called vipassana (insight) that was introduced by the Buddha about twenty-five centuries ago is a set of mental activities specifically aimed at experiencing a state of uninterrupted mindfulness." (Chapter 13, Mindfulness)

"The vipassana meditator uses concentration as a tool by which his or her
awareness can chip away at the wall of illusion that blocks the living light
of reality. It is a gradual process of ever-increasing awareness into the
inner workings of reality itself" (Introduction)

Vipassana is depicted as a strict but rewarding discipline, which sounds like the Spiritual Exercises. (Loyola's reputation does remind me more of the rigors of Rinzai Zen -- though I don't have personal experience of any of these practices.)

It should come as no surprise that there are correspondences between different spiritual traditions. The raw material is human nature, which doesn't vary by place and time. Culture varies, of course; the resonances between religious practices in widely differing cultures add weight to the "innate" scale of the nature-nurture balance.

Gunaratana explains "Universal Loving Loving-Kindness" as a way to use good feelings and good wishes to counter-act obstacles, like greed and hatred, that the ego places in the way self-less awareness. Some excerpts from Chapter 9, Set-up Exercises:

"The most damaging psychic irritant arising in the mind, particularly at the time when the mind is quiet, is resentment. You may experience indignation remembering some incident that caused you psychological and physical pain. This experience can cause you uneasiness, tension, agitation and worry. You might not be able to go on sitting and experiencing this state of mind. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you should start your meditation with generating Universal Loving-Kindness. "

" You start out by banishing thoughts of self-hatred and self-condemnation. You allow good feelings and good wishes first to flow to yourself, which is relatively easy. Then you do the same for those people closest to you. Gradually, you work outward from your own circle of intimates until you can direct a flow of those same emotions to your enemies and to all living beings everywhere. Correctly done, this can be a powerful and transformative exercise in itself. "

Here is the formula:

"May {I, my parents, my teachers, my friends, my enemies, ...} be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life. "

In the Christian tradition, some orders of monks and nuns pray for people who need God's help: the ill, the dying, the desperate. I've come to wonder whether this practice was not, in fact, a useful aid in contemplation, in addition to fulfilling a useful social role in interceding for those who suffer. It's clearly a structured way of allowing good feelings and good wishes to flow towards those who are in need. Jesus and the apostles instructed the faithful to love their enemies as they loved themselves [4]:

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Luke 6:27-28)

The context around these injunctions is moral, and not about how to meditate. However, I suspect that the tradition of praying for others assisted in the practice of contemplation, whether that was intended in the Scriptures or not.

-----

[1] Diarmid MacCulloch, The Reformation, 2003, Ch. 5, Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits, p. 214

[2] http://www.ccel.org/i/ignatius/exercises/exercises.html, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14224b.htm, http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/se/se.htm

[3] Bhante Henepola Gunaratan, Mindfulness in Plain English, 2002

[4] A number of these injunctions can be found on http://www.dougbrittonbooks.com/resources/angloveenemy010424.asp.

Mandela on language skills

Cited in many places, though I haven't found the source:

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

For more Madiba quotes, see Brainyquote.

bad lands

Today's interview with Charles Bowden on Marketplace has shaken me to the core [1], [2].

Bowden observes that illegal immigration could easily be stopped if employers were fined $1,000/hour for employing undocumented workers. But if immigration stopped, Mexico would "collapse and explode". The only solution to immigration, he says, is to improve conditions in Mexico so that people don't risk their lives for miserable jobs.

This is not only an heroic economic development challenge, it's a labyrinth of political feuds baited with hair-trigger national sensitivities. Jeffrey Davidow's book The Bear and the Porcupine is a trenchant sketch of the grotesqueries of this cross-border stand-off. Bowden notes that there's no Marshall Plan for Mexico - but I take from Davidow that such a plan would be rejected by proud Mexicans as a threat to their sovereignty and an insult to their dignity.

Perhaps this a topic where my affection for Latin American culture can complement my knowledge of policy in a way that would benefit both Mexico and the United States...

------

[1] Interview: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/undocumented_war/, click on "Part 5"

[2] This is part of a larger project called "The Undocumented War" by Scott Carrier

When there's doubt, shout

New Scientist reports [1] that experts are locked in an acrimonious debate about whether rinderpest is still prevalent in its last hold-out on the planet, southern Somalia. It quotes an anonymous source:

"The science involved is really not rocket science. The difficulty is people
management. When we really don't know what the best answer is, those with strong opinions and strong egos are the ones who win."

That sounds a lot like politics, national or corporate. It suggests that politicking is a sign of complexity: one faces a dispute with no easy or objective path to resolution.

As organizations get bigger, the problems they to solve become more complex, because there are more moving parts. Hence, politics becomes inevitable.

That's not to say that there aren't complex decisions to be made in start-ups; however, there are fewer of them, and fewer big egos. Usually there's just one -- the founder -- and it's their way or the highway.

The quote also reminds me of the cliche that academic arguments are so acrimonious because the stakes are so small. The subtlety of issues to be decided probably also plays a role, as does the large number of strong opinions and strong egos.

-----

[1] "Killer in the fold", Thembi Mutch, New Scientist, 30 April 2005, p. 42

Checking in, being checked out

The reception desk at the National Hotel in Moscow is at the end of a long, narrow room. Getting there is a long walk, being watched by the receptionist all the way. I defer my gaze, feeling like a supplicant.

In American hotels, the desk is wide and embracing, and the space in front of it is shallow. You reach the desk rapidly, and you’re in control of the approach. You can almost pounce on the receptionist before they see you coming.

A long walk up, under scrutiny; a short walk to a wide welcome. Space, time, gaze: a primer in establishing who’s in control.

Car color

S. and I were discussing why most cars are such boring colors. She pointed out that most people buy cars off the lot, and thus most cars will be a muted color that offends few.

My theory was that buyers worry about resale - a car with a distinctive color will be hard to sell on. This is not a very good explanation at face value; I doubt that most people think about resale when they're buying a vehicle. On the other hand, since most cars are leased, the lessors - the dealers - do worry about this. This brings us back to S.'s explanation, since they (and the manufacturers) determine the specs for the cars on the lot.

One implication of S.'s theory is that we'll see more diverse colors as more people buy cars online, or otherwise specify precisely what they want rather than buy on impulse. The color of one's car is a great way to express individuality. One can already see that cars sold in this way, like the new Bug and Mini, have much more interesting colors than the muted livery of most other marques.

Excuse me - I have to ignore you for a while

Here’s a pointed description of one introvert:

"You don’t like having people around, including yourself.”

Not all introverts dislike themselves. For a wonderfully amusing and insightful take on introversion, read Jonathan Rauch’s Atlantic Monthly piece, Caring for your Introvert

For example:

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay — in small doses."

There is some debate on the importance of the introversion/extraversion distinction, though it’s one of the Big Five personality dimensions. Keirsey prefers to talk about Reserved vs Expressive people, but uses similar terms:

Expressive persons appear to be energized, charged up, by contact with other people. Owing to the surge they get when in company, they are quick to approach others, even strangers, and talk to them, finding this an easy and pleasant thing to do, and something they don't want to do without. Such interaction apparently charges their batteries and makes them feel alive. […] On the other hand, Reserved persons can be said to draw energy from a different source. They prefer to pursue solitary activities, working quietly alone with their favored project or hobby, however simple or complicated it may be, and such isolated activities are what seem to charge their batteries. Indeed, the Reserved can remain only so long in contact with others before their energies are depleted.

He closes his comment with an observation that rings true for me:

There is some social bias toward expressiveness in American social life, but Reserved persons have no reason to feel that there is anything wrong with them, and should be sure to provide adequately for their legitimate desire for quiet time to themselves.

The interesting development is that New Scientist reports that the Big Five (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion) may not be set in stone. One research team has found, for example, that openness decreases with age, and agreeableness improves.

Seeing the Setting

I’ve often bemoaned the fact that so many meetings are held in windowless conference rooms in the bowels of beautiful hotels in exotic settings. What a waste! One might as well meet at the Airport Holiday Inn – or so I thought.

Having just spent a week like this, I realized that the locale can make a huge difference, particularly if I consciously see the setting. One doesn’t need to spend hours amidst beauty for it to rejuvenate the spirits; a few seconds will do. I simply haven’t been mindful enough to take in what I was seeing.

Even if I hadn’t been conscious of it, I suspect that nice setting have a positive subliminal effect. If these meetings had all been held at the Airport Hotel, people’s spirits would have been subdued. The work would’ve been done, but without the spark of happiness.

I’ve resolved to try to see the places I’m in more clearly, and to take pleasure from them. It’s surprisingly hard to do; my mind is so well-trained to pattern-match to the task at hand (like finding the bathroom, dashing to the room to do email, or making small-talk with other participants) that this is all I observe – and I miss wonder of the world.

Deciding vs. Doing

A passing comment has led me to this conclusion: the ability to make decisions is often distinct from the ability to execute.

"Ability" here is meant primarily in organizational rather than personal terms. While some individuals may have a preference one way or another, the situation they find themselves in seems to influence their ability to do both simultaneously. In a reasonably contained organization, eg a small business, the chief executive needs to be able to make decisions and execute on them; there isn't an alternative.

As organizational complexity increases, executives are increasingly channeled into one modality vs. another. Some leaders make the hard trade-offs that lead to a vision and strategy. Others are more focused on execution; though such work in itself requires endless hard decisions to be taken, I distinguish those from the strategic decisions that shape an organization's future.

You might be a geek if...

This one from S.

You decide that your co-worker's whiteboard needs a rainbow drawn on it.

You select those colors from the available whiteboard pens that appear
in the rainbow and order them according to the spectrum.

You can't remember for sure whether the red is on the inside or the outside of the
rainbow, so give up on the project in preference to getting it wrong.

This is why geeks have the reputation of not being romantic, even when it's spring and the sap is rising...

In praise of self

Anglos who come to America are struck by the number of people who revel in describing their achievements. It deserves explanation. Here are some reasons why folk might insist on telling you all about the great things they've done.

1. It's the way they've been brought up. There's certainly a cultural component to talking about oneself. The English are taught to take a perverse pride in being excruciatingly humble. the same seems to be true in Japan and the Mid-west. I haven't discerned any regional patterns of American self-aggrandizement, though.

2. They're selling themselves to you. If people feel that they can prove themselves by describing their achievements, they'll do it. If it leads to increased respect, it's in their best interests.

3. They're selling themselves to themselves. This has always been my favorite explanation: people who revel in themselves have a low sense of self-worth. I'm not so sure any more. The very prevalence of the truism that blames all sorts of social ills on people's low self-esteem has made me increasingly skeptical of it. There's even evidence on the other side, now. It's often said that bullies have low self-esteem. However, New Scientist reports that bullying others has social value (Clare Wilson, 5 March 2004, "Teenagers special: Bully boys"). Anthony Pellgrini found in a study of 138 school children that bullying raised a perpetrator's social status (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol 85, p 257). These kids know what they're doing. According to Pellegrini in this story: "Boys have high status with their male peers if they're bullies, and girls like them"

4. They're just bubbling over with enthusiasm for their work, and they love telling you about it. People who are goal oriented achievers will frame their work in terms of accomplishments, and a litany of triumphs will pour out without any ulterior motive.

I'm beginning to think that enthusiasm (#4) accounts for quite a lot of pride expression, particularly in America. Overt enthusiasm is encouraged here, and so enthusiasts are more visible. Tie that to a culture of selling (reason #2), and one can begin to explain #1.