Escape from Pianosa

I agree with Jackie. Meetings with agendas and objectives suck.

I’m very thankful that my current work situation doesn’t involve endless meetings. It does involve a lot of creative collaboration and ad hoc discussions, but nothing of the “sit in the conference room with 15 other people and watch PowerPoint” variety.

When I worked for the government I sometimes spent hours a day in long, boring, and mostly pointless meetings where two people would take up 90% of the conversation while everyone else sat around trying to stave off sleep. Some days I would be in meetings for four hours out of the day.

I used to think of a girl I had a class with in college. On the first day of class she told the professor that she was narcoleptic, so hey if I fall asleep, it’s just my condition. She never fell asleep in class and I don’t know if she was really narcoleptic but it seemed like a brilliant ploy at the time. And I would sit there at the one-hour mark of some status meeting thinking oh God why didn’t I use that narcolepsy bit when I started working here.

So why not unmeetings? Just send off an email and say “hey, a few of us are going to talk about the marketing strategy for the client at 10am. Stop by if you have something you’d like to share.”

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Being in a high-paying but miserable job is a nasty combination. Really really nasty. It’s easy to leave a bad job that pays poorly. What do you have to lose? Worst-case scenario, you’re back in another miserable job.

But being in a miserable job that pays well; that’s really tough. Because every day your mind is wondering why you are here, in this boring office, surrounded by people you can’t stand, doing meaningless work. Why would you, logical you, subject yourself to such torture? Because the money’s good, your mind thinks..it must be. It must be amazing and magical if you’re willing to sacrifice your happiness for it, right?

So you become obsessed with the money and start to place irrational value on it.  And it gets really hard to leave because your mind’s convinced that the pain is worth it. And you start looking around for something new, and oh doesn’t that look interesting!

But you’re entry level and you’re not going to make as much. And what if the new job is even worse? What if you’re just as miserable, except now you’re only making half of what you made before. Wouldn’t that make me look like a big idiot?

Yeah, it’s a vicious cycle. So be careful what job you take for the money. Unless of course it’s “fuck you” money. You should probably take the fuck you money.

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I did an improv workshop for Aaron’s Intro to Entrepreneurship class at the local college. It was my first time on the teaching end of improv and it really brought home for me just how much improv has changed my life, and I am still very much a novice.

A year ago, I would’ve been extremely uncomfortable getting up in front of an audience like that. I still get nervous in public speaking situations but I find that it’s an excitement energy instead of a fear energy.

I love improv’s power to change people in positive ways–in just a two hour workshop, everyone was noticeably more open in their body language and more comfortable being the center of attention. From shyness and fear to comfort and confidence–it’s a beautiful thing to see and feel in a human being.

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Seth Godin is like this never-ending generator of cool ideas and insights. Every time I read something that he writes, I can feel the connections forming in my brain…

My philosophy then, and my philosophy now, is that learning the first 80% of something new takes 20% of the effort. My goal in college was not to become an expert on phenomenology or civil engineering; my goal was to understand the framework of as many disciplines as I could.

That’s me. I love learning the first 80% of something. It’s a personality trait that serves me well. I try lots of new things because they fascinate me and I find myself knowing a little bit about a lot of things. And the more ideas or subjects or philosophies or careers that you sample, the more likely you are to find one that you really love. Then you can spend the effort of learning the last 20%.

So much in life is simple luck. Finding your passion is the same. When I read about people who always knew what they wanted to be, I think yeah, that’s because so many people start that way. How many people, at age 12, decide they want to be actors or dancers or firefighters? Lots. So when people end up in those professions, it’s not uncommon for them to have started down that path at an early age.

What you don’t hear about is all the people who started out dreaming of becoming an actor, only to discover later that what really excites (or pays) them is accounting or software or engineering. People overestimate their ability to predict what they will enjoy. To overcome that bias, you have to lean towards experimentation.

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Nora told me I was her hero for not having a real job and that she doesn’t want me to change. Chris agrees.  All this time I felt somewhat like a bum, but no, I’m not. I’m a hero. That’s right. It’s not just firefighters that get to be heroes. It’s people like me. People brave enough to say “no” to the 9 to 5, even if it means living in your parents house for months at a time, sleeping in a little bed that’s two inches shorter than your body. The search for meaning is long and the examined life is hard. Don’t give up brave soldiers, don’t ever give up.

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“An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.” Especially…

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

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Clara touches on something that’s been running through my head for the past few months, that there’s this paradox between happiness and ambition. Happiness implies that you are content with what you have today, in this moment. And so I want to be happy, but I cannot square this desire with my other desires… to get a better job, to become a better improviser, to achieve and to change the world. There’s gotta be a way out of this; somehow you can be happy and ambitious, right?

My theory: Maybe contentment simply isn’t in our genes. Thanking one’s lucky stars serves no evolutionary purpose. As the dissatisfied and restless update their lives, always chasing what’s bigger and better, those who cash in too early get left in the dust. What’s more, life is short. Too much blissful rumination about the good things can distract a person from the bad that needs attention.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it seems that someone too easily contented will find himself too easily eaten by a large beast. Or his mate may sense his lack of ambition and head for greener pastures. I mean, to be 100% happy with your situation can only be a temporary thing. You’ll get hungry sooner or later.

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What are the implications for marriage and dating when scientists cure aging and humans can live vastly extended lives? If we live to 200 or 300 years old, will we still be monogamous?

It seems to me that the answer is no. When we get married, we forgo all future romantic relationships. In today’s world, where you might expect to live into your 80s or 90s, the opportunity cost of marriage is relatively low. If I get married at 30, then I’m giving up 50 to 60 years of single life. But as every year passes, the returns to bachelorhood decline. Every year I’m a little more wrinkled and my body is a little less defined. Financial success can offset these losses in physical appeal, but only up to a certain point. The 70-year-old millionaire isn’t much competition in dating terms for a fit 30-year-old who makes $70,000 a year.

But all that changes if I’m not aging anymore. If my nominal age is 95, but my biological age is 42, then I’ll still be an attractive mate. And so the costs of marriage skyrocket. Instead of forgoing 15-20 years of eligible bachelor status, I’ll be forgoing 150-250 years of eligibility.

My prediction is that people will still get married but on more of an ad hoc basis. We’ll get married for say 30 years, during which we’ll join together with a mate for the purpose of raising children, but these relationships will end amicably and people will go their separate ways, to start new families with new mates.

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The Tao. This book kept coming up in my thoughts so I decided to read it. What does it mean? I cannot say for sure, but I’m fascinated with the idea of “wu-wei,” which some translate as unattached action, effortless effort, or action through inaction.

Unattached action is my favorite translation, and I interpret it to mean that you should act purposefully, but without great attachment to the outcomes of your actions, for you can never truly control the consequences of your actions nor can you control (or predict) the future environment in which those consequences will play out. In other words, don’t worry too much about the future because you can’t predict it.

This thought has come up recently for me in improv, when teachers talk about not going into a scene with pre-conceived notions about what that scene will entail. If you try and force your pre-conceived notion of what the scene will be about, then you will be rigid and unable to react and respond appropriately to your partner. Basically, you will suck because you are trying to shape your future in a way that is impossible (unless your partner is a mind-reader).

It came up again when I read Nassim Taleb. The Black Swan has no doubt changed my philosophy of life. He showed me just how damn hard it is to predict the future. Better to live in the moment and not create anxiety for yourself when the things that shape your life will probably be unforeseen and heavily influenced by luck.

Is this all a recipe for complete inaction and resignation? Absolutely not. Your actions today will still shape the future, and not in entirely random ways. Move toward what you want in life, but don’t plan too far ahead, and be flexible for when conditions change. At least that’s my current experiment in life philosophy.

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Nassim Taleb’s book really got me thinking about luck, and how to incorporate the idea of luck into a philosophy of life. If we are bad at predicting, for instance, what career will make us happy, then we should try as many different careers as possible to see which one we like. We should take lots of small risks, with a chance for a big payoff.

If I try out a career as a real estate agent, and I find that I don’t like it, then I have failed. I’ve made an error. But I’ve lost very little–my risk was small. In fact, the discomfort I experienced in a career I disliked was probably balanced out by the comfort of my newfound knowledge.

I can repeat this process with many careers until I find one that I enjoy immensely–my Black Swan career so to speak–something that I enjoy so much, that all the previous failures and erroneous predictions about what career would make me happy are insignificant.

In attempting this process, I must be wary of the confirmation bias. If, before becoming a real estate agent, I convince myself that real estate will make me happy (as opposed to keeping an open mind about the result), then I will look for confirming evidence of this belief. I will say “see, I do love real estate!” every time something positive happens, and I will tend to ignore the disconfirming evidence until it grows so immense that I am unable to ignore it.

Falling into such a trap will cause me to waste precious time that could be spent looking elsewhere for career satisfaction. And more time wasted means fewer opportunities to find the ideal career.

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I just finished reading the most amazing book–The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It’s a real masterpiece of an essay. I learned so much from the book that I can barely begin to describe it all.

The most important ideas I learned are that there are major limits to our knowledge, and that uncertainty plays a large role in our lives. Experts and laymen alike are simply not good at predicting the future–especially “Black Swans,” extremely high-impact events that are unforeseeable. There can be good black swans (your novel becomes a bestseller making your rich) and bad ones (the stock market crashes and your retirement fund is wiped out).

Taleb delves deeply into epistemology–which inspired me to read Karl Popper–and so many other areas like probability, prediction, markets, bell curves vs. power laws; the book is so fascinating, you’ll just have to read it yourself.

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My observation today is that when you learn something new, it’s best to immerse yourself in a subject completely and learn all the “rules.” For me recently, I’ve been learning about economics but in the past this has applied to languages I’ve learned as well.

And everything you learn–every new system, whether it’s a science or a language, has a system and various subsystems. When you learn Spanish, you know that there are several ways to conjugate verbs. For instance, all verbs ending in -ar conjugate the same, as well as all verbs ending in -ir and -er. They all follow their own systems, but in this way we learn the simple rule for conjugating a verb, and then we can easily apply it to the thousands of verbs.

And it’s all very easy, except for when it’s not. Except for the two dozen or so “irregular verbs” that conjugate differently and the nasty but indispensable verbs like ser and estar and ir, without which we would not be able to go or to be.

Pardon the rambling but my original thought was that in economics, you learn lots of laws. Laws about how markets work and economic laws that govern human behavior. They may be harder to prove in laboratories but they govern all the same–things like supply and demand and the fact that when you place an artificial ceiling on price, then you will create a shortage. Yes, even in Iran, they have a gasoline shortage due to a short-sighted choice to ignore economic law.

And so all these laws and ideas about free markets–they really do exist and they really do work, except it’s not as simple as that. There’s a cultural component and “institutions matter.” So you cannot just throw up a society based on capitalism and say voilá and watch it grow. Because people have to believe in the system for it to work. You need more that courts to enforce laws, because courts will not be effective if nobody believes they will.

There is a cultural component underlying all social institutions and this is something I can see but that I understand very little about. In Spanish you can learn the exceptions to rules, but in economics I don’t think that anyone really understands all the answers yet. So I am a libertarian, but I will admit that there are gray areas and that pushing the magical “make everything libertarian” button might have some adverse consequences.

And if culture is so important, then that’s a bit sad too. Because it means bringing prosperity to impoverished places takes deep cultural change and not just checks from the west or military revolutions.

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Again from The Introvert Advantage, comes this passage with the author describing herself:

“I’ve never understood why in the world anyone would view me as hiding anything. But as I’ve mentioned, I have been told that I’m mysterious.”

This hit me particularly hard in view of the fact that recently some of my friends have begun calling me “mystery man” because sometimes I don’t tell them things about my life or I seem to disappear. I have to examine things in my head a great deal before I can reveal them to the world, which can lead to some funny conversations.

Me: So I’m trying out for this improv group.

Friend: What? Where did this come from?

Me: Oh you didn’t know? I’ve been taking classes for 6 months now.

The effect is really magnified when it comes to my strange political views or my eccentric dietary habits.

Friend: Who you voting for? Hillary or Obama?

Me: Well, actually, I’m not really excited about either of those choices…

Friend: Really? I thought you were a Democrat.

Me: Well I was… But I changed… About two years ago. I’m actually something called a “libertarian” now.

Friend: Oh god!

Ok so maybe it’s not always about being an introvert. Maybe it’s about social acceptance!

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So it’s kinda ironic that most people find my site in search of ways become more extroverted. Ironic because I am most definitely an introvert, although I should point out that being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re shy or nervous around other people. This I learned while reading The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney.

Yes, it turns out that you can be a very outgoing introvert, although the behavior we associate with extroverts–going to parties, social events, and big gatherings–really sucks the energy out of introverts like myself. Hence the fact that I tend to disappear socially every once in a while when I run out of steam. In fact, before reading this book, I thought there was something wrong with me. I really love parties and meeting new people and yet I often feel like I need to be alone.

The inverse is also true; extroverts can be shy. Imagine needing lots of social interaction to feel good about yourself and yet being too shy to meet new people. A deadly combination.

I suspect that the people who come to this blog looking for advice on how to extrovert themselves are shy people who want to be more outgoing and socially comfortable. I’ve mentioned ways to do that in previous entries and it mostly involves putting yourself out there and practicing “outgoingness.” There are no easy fixes. That being said..if you’re an introvert, then you should learn about your strengths and play up to them. Living in an extrovert world is tough, but very manageable.

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I was browsing quotations from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, in search of a byline for this blog. I came across this little gem from the scene in Rome where Nately, the Amerian optimist and patriot finds himself arguing with the Old Man in Rome. What fascinates me is how the old man’s arguments strike me as being both utterly absurd, yet profoundly true.

America,” [the Old Man] said, “will lose the war. And Italy will win it.”

America is the stongest and most prosperous nation on earth,” Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. “And the American fighting man is second to none.”

“Exactly,” agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that’s exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly.”

“I’m sorry I laughed at you. But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don’t call that doing very well, do you?”

“But of course I do,” exclaimed the old man cheerfully. “The Germans are being driven out, and we’re still here. In a few years, you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that’s what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying anymore. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I’m quite certain Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed” …

….”I don’t believe anything you tell me,” Nately replied… “The only thing I do believe is that America is going to win the war.”

“You put so much stock in winning wars. The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we’ve done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crisis. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn’t a chance of winning. But now that we’re losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.”

It’s easy to play the game and substitute ‘Iraq’ for ‘Italy,’ but I think that’s too simplistic. Iraq is not doing so well, and may be far worse after the U.S. leaves. Still, there are some parallels to be drawn. Americans are dying every day and some day we will look back and wonder how the greatest army in the world lost to a fighting force “second to all.”

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