Sucking the marrow from life

Like many kids growing up in the 60’s, I got “into” yoga and other eastern practices at a very early age. I did Aikido for many years. Studied Japanese in university. Tried Transcendental Meditation. Spent years in ashrams, monasteries and temples, communing with monks and other sages from many denominations. I’ve always had an interest in what we call in Psychology today, Transpersonal Psychology; how people search for transcendent meaning, i.e., meaning that transcends our death.

Some 20 years back, I took a mindfulness meditation course with one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s senior students. We walked for hours at an excruciatingly slow pace, staring at the ground and attending to each gruellingly slow step. We then ate lunch in absolute silence, slowly bringing each mouthful from fork to mouth and then chewing it to death. I almost lost my marbles. At a certain point, the Zorba in me rebelled and I realized this just wasn’t for me.

Mindfulness is really big these days. So I was pleased to read this most wonderful article by Gina Barecca, that gives a very Greek twist to the whole experience of mindfulness. A wonderful read.

You want more than to be “in” the moment because being “in” it isn’t enough. You want to throw your arms around it and hold onto it, wringing every bit of intensity, significance and pleasure from the moment the way you’d wring water out of a wet cloth.

Brilliant

Choosing how to see the world around you is the true mark of education. Thanks to Nadya C for the find.

Naive or heroic?

There seems to be an almost constant flow of stories of Westerners kidnapped, killed or injured in non first-world countries, which are also, coincidentally, hotbeds of terrorism and violence. Just a couple of days ago, a 47 year-old female American teacher was stabbed to death at a mall in Abu Dhabi. The UK MailOnline writes:

“The teacher, had moved to the Middle Eastern country in search of a better life following a divorce”.

This latest story is one in a series that includes aid workers, journalists, ex pats such as the teacher above, and even tourists. Here’s my question: Why would you go to seek a “better life” in a place with embedded social values that are so antithetical to those that are inculcated in the West? Why would you want to visit such places as a tourist? Why would you leave your kids and wife in the UK to go deliver aid in Syria and risk being captured and beheaded by ISIS? Journalists take on these risks fully knowing what they are getting into; it’s part of the job, just like it is for soldiers. But why would “ordinary” people embark on such misadventures?

The classic definition of heroism is when someone places himself at serious risk in order to help others. The term has been widely corrupted in recent years to include sports stars, actors, and even golfers; anyone in fact who takes any risk in order to entertain others. “Achievement” and “risk” have become almost interchangeable, i.e., anyone who achieves anything notable and admirable takes on heroic status.

I was having the discussion with my son recently and he came up with an intriguing line. He said, “I don’t travel to places where the people who live there are trying to escape and come here”. Surely, there is some good sense in this. Is it just innocence that drives people to risk their lives in god-forsaken hell-holes, or is it something more significant…some form of heroism that I just don’t get?

Unforeseen reaction to the iPhone 6 Plus

I just got my new iPhone 6 Plus. I love it. My iPad3 has already been passed down to my wife, who passed down her iPad2 to my son, who sold his iPad1. This is the natural order of things. I am iPad FREE, as Maxwell Smart used to say, “And….loving it”. The iPhone 6 Plus is just the right size for me. Big enough for easy reading of books and magazines, small enough as a phone. Apple’s decision to finally enter the phablet market is obviously paying off as the iPhone 6 is breaking all sales records; quite the achievement for a company with a constant string of new “records” with every product it launches.

So much for the good stuff. As usual, in every silver lining, there is a cloud. I brought my iPhone 6 Plus to a workshop in Quebec City earlier this week. Everyone who saw it immediately reacted the same way: “Oh, is that the new Samsung Note?”. Yup…after paying $1200 for the jewel of smartphones…everyone thinks it’s a Samsung. Good thing I’m not attached to status! 🙂

And this is funny: The first thing everyone does when they ask to handle it, is flip it on its side and see if it’s bent. The power of the internet!

So many people and so many words to explain a one-word concept

Philotimo is the central and defining Greek cultural value. It is embedded into every child from his or her first moments of consciousness. And yet, it is extremely difficult to explain. It underlies every great discovery and even the very origins of Western civilization. Have a look:

Lies and deception transcend the internet

It’s bad enough trusting the information you see on the internet, but when the last bastions of integrity begin to fall, where do you turn? The answer apparently is: Nowhere! Scientific peer-reviewed journals are [were] one such place, but it seems that even these have become corrupted. From The Scientist, an article about the sudden shift in editorial policy at one prestigious cardiology journal:

The Canadian scientific journal Experimental & Clinical Cardiology used to publish well-founded studies in the field and was widely read within the cardiology community. But since being sold and moved offshore in 2013, the journal is now publishing anything submitted along with a fee of $1,200, packaging spurious studies as serious scientific papers.

I wrote this in response to the question, why do people do this stuff?

A friend of mine is a journalist. He worked for many years for some major newspapers. He also worked early in his career for one of rags that post outrageous “news”, e.g., alien babies, man trapped in abandoned department store revolving door for 7 years, etc. He told me that the smartest people he ever met were at this phoney news outlet. In his words: “They got a real kick out of seeing how far they could bend the truth and still have people believe it”. I think that’s a good chunk of it today, plus the crazies and the worst of all, the true believers, i.e., those who are so clear-headed in their self-evident truth that they feel the end justifies the means.

Probably most important is: Money and influence. I realized this reading a FaceBook post on the purported benefits of Himalayan sea salt. At first it seemed a joke, but the passion of the believers in this stuff made me curious so I did a search, only to uncover hundreds of web sites selling the stuff, backed up by loads of spurious claims and “science” to back them up. It turns out there’s big money in stupid!

Bullshit busting

They say that you are what you do, but lately I’ve heard the expression, “You do what you are”. I like it, and feel that it is a far better way of explaining the mysterious occupations many of us pursue. This also goes a lot farther in explaining how I got into Psychology and to what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years, namely developing a process and methodology whereby people can freely disclose their most frank and intimate beliefs about companies, organizations, vendors, you name it.  We called this “product”, Psychmentation, and it has been enormously successful for our firm, used by some of the largest and most successful global organizations to better understand how their customers and employees perceive them.

You might say, I’m in the bullshit or delusion busting business, and times are good…never before has there been so much deception, lies, misinformation, disinformation, and just outright bullshit as in the current age of the internet. In fact, I think if the great historians, Will and Ariel Durant were still working on their Magnus Opus, ours might well be titled, The Age of Bullshit. I really do.

Rest assured however, that I am just as much as you frustrated by how tough it is to get at any semblance of truthful information about ANY topic. It seems that every proposition is immediately and aggressively blasted by competing interests, usually with selective information meant to support their opposing view. Before you know it, protesters are lying on the street blockading the embassy of some offending nation or the offices of some corporation. I’m not saying these actions are unjustified, I’m simply saying that they are usually premature and based on motivated reasoning rather than balanced information, analysis, and judgement.

So where do you go for sound, balanced, responsible, accountable analysis and facts? We used to rely on newspapers and magazines, but many of these have either starved to death or fallen victim to corruption in the unfettered rush to financial salvation in the age of “free” information, selling their souls to the Devil. I’ve got news for you…it’s never really free.

I’ve been looking for somewhere to start, reviewing the ownership profiles, Mission statements, and editorial policies of the various remaining “serious” journalistic outlets. I have decided to begin with the doggedly centrist, The Economist. I’ve been reading many of their articles and like the balanced view. I like the anonymity of each piece, crafted not for the celebrity and glorification of a single person, but reviewed and contributed to by many participants.

Many hands write The Economist, but it speaks with a collective voice. Leaders are discussed, often disputed, each week in meetings that are open to all members of the editorial staff. Journalists often co-operate on articles. And some articles are heavily edited. The main reason for anonymity, however, is a belief that what is written is more important than who writes it.

The About section is a fascinating glimpse into the history and evolution of one of the last remaining serious “newspapers”.  I’m also looking for equivalent Left and Right of centre vehicles to complete my efforts to cut through the shit and get to the Shineola! I ordered a hard-copy weekly subscription which also provides access to all digital versions. I’ll keep you posted on thoughts over the next year.

 

Asshats

I’ve promised to get some exercise using a new colloquialism I learned this week, “Asshat”, a somewhat more polite version of its better known sister term.

Last year, I had sent out some information about one of our services to senior pharma executives. One guy, a VP with one of the Big 5 pharma companies, responded with a request to meet. I brought along one of our Associates, an MD. We had a good meeting. I subsequently followed up with the potential client, but to no avail. No responses to my emails or phone messages. This appears to be the new standard of discourtesy; just don’t respond until they get the message you’re not interested. It frankly pisses me off. If you don’t want what we’re offering, just say so. We’re big boys (and girls) and can take it. But don’t make me waste my time following up with you because I think you may not have received my email!

Anyway, I just learned that after an illustrious 20 year career with the company, this gentleman has been downsized, and as is typical, has opened his own one-man consulting business (“Consulting” is often a euphemism for, “I lost my job and am ashamed to tell anyone”).  His first steps will likely include trying to leverage his network for work. This will likely include other consulting firms. I hope he calls. I will steer him to the dictionary for the term Asshat.

What constitutes proof to a denialist?

Denialists will be the death of me. It doesn’t matter how much proof you show them, it’s either never enough, or the source is so suspect (to them) that it negates the value of the proof. Motivated Reasoning taken to the point of madness. And since Denialism runs hand-in-hand with conspiracy paranoia, one is better off spending one’s oxygen trying to convert a Jehovah’s Witness to Voodoo than convincing a denialist that Obama was born in the USA!

So what constitutes proof? I think, our former Prime Minister Jean Chretien said it best:

A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It’s a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.

 

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

In the wake of my earlier post on the similarities between death and stupidity, I received a lot of enthusiastic commentary on FB; the topic of human stupidity having touched a chord in many people. My cousin in Greece, Vasili, pointed me to a great little book by the renown Italian economic historian, Carlo M. Cipolla, titled, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, available on Amazon and other sites for a nominal cost as either a paperback or eBook.  This is a very short book, but loaded with critical observations and lots of tongue-in-cheek humour.  As I was preparing this post I realized that a number of sites have posted the complete book (minus the mathematical appendices) for free. One such site is here.

This is essential reading if you are to find peace of mind in the modern world. Cipolla’s definition of stupidity is brilliant in that it doesn’t rely on intelligence tests, education, etc. In fact, Cipolla makes the compelling case that stupidity is evenly distributed across all demographics, regardless of race, colour, creed, genetics, education, or anything else you can think of.

A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

The book is filled with observations that are simultaneously pithy and hilarious. On the dangers of stupid people, Cipolla writes:

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality….All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty manoeuvres and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defenses. With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy. Because the stupid person’s actions do not conform to the rules of rationality.

The one major flaw in Cipolla’s reasoning of course, is that he fails to account for the intrinsic psychological payback that many people derive from seemingly irrational behavior; the Ego gratification as it were. By Cipolla’s definition, anti-vaxxers are the poster boys and girls for stupidity, harming not only their own children, but the children of others as well, with no rational reason. In fact, recent studies have shown that the more indisputable scientific information you present to anti-vaxxers, the more firmly entrenched they become in their beliefs! Such is the nature of motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, and egoic identification with certain beliefs.