There are two views of the Good Life.
The first is that a good life is full of good works: what matters are the kind, useful, constructive, healing, things we do.
The second is that a good life is full of feelings and relationships, and it does not matter what those feelings and relationships are: what matters is to feel and relate intensely.
It's binary: your temperament is one or the other.
You may, however, believe one, while living the other. Believing that life is for the feeling, but living sensibly, is very common amongst former drunks, junkies, coke-heads, divorcees, and the like, not all of whom enjoyed the ups and downs of their chaos. Chaos is not emotion. You can have emotions and still have a clean and neat kitchen. People who live for feelings often do good works, but for them it's a by-product not a goal.
The people who live for feelings don't just want rainbows and candy-floss. Emotions need to be sweet and sour. Anger, disappointment, frustration, grudges, revenge, contempt, resentment, are just as good.
Football fans are like this. They would like their team to win, but what they really don't want is a nil-nil draw after ninety minutes of faultless defensive play on both sides. They want the roller-coaster. It's the same as gambling: losses work the emotions as much as wins.
Any emotion is better than no emotion. Any relationship is better than no relationship.
This is only dysfunctional from the point of view of Stoicism, Protestantism, and other such fun-sucking approaches to life, many of which on closer examination turn out to be associated with aristocracy and established wealth. In many societies, vigorous, engaged, volatile, emotion-based action and reaction is prized and honoured by the masses, and is thus highly functional, providing the emotional roller-coaster ride that makes living, well, Life.
Therapists who emphasise having "good" emotions and "good" relationships , or at least removing the bad stuff, dumping the users, losers and abusers, are in fact closet Good Works people. Emotions and relationships can only be "good" and "bad" relative to some goal or purpose. Whereas to the emotion-centric emotions and relationships have intrinsic value for good or ill.
Understand that "sour" emotions are as satisfying, if not more so, than "sweet" emotions, and many puzzling things become clear. Especially why people stay in so-called "dysfunctional" relationships, or take stupid risks, or believe daft things: it's all about the emotions. Take away those and their lives become empty, no matter what good things they may also be doing.
When emotion-centric people get older they can often seem to flip. Suddenly they don't like drama, and aren't interested in people who cause problems. This isn't because they have suddenly acquired a goal in life: it's because the rewards they get from the emotions are not worth the energy it takes to create and maintain those high-cost emotional states. The same cost-benefit calculations that kept them in and around chaos, drama, users and losers, now make them choose to live a quieter life, because the costs don't go down, but the benefits do.
Showing posts with label Life Rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life Rules. Show all posts
Tuesday 19 December 2023
Tuesday 7 February 2023
Whisky, Cigarettes and the Meaning of Life - Redux
One of my constant themes is that the meaning and purpose of any person’s life is for them to choose, and exists in the dedication and work towards whatever goal they have chosen. It's not the goal that gives us meaning, but the work we do to achieve it. Any athlete, artist, scholar or entrepreneur will tell you that. Children provide meaning through the work their parents do in raising those children.
If you are religious, then God brings meaning, through your service for him in this life.(*)
Conversely, changing the objective can sometimes turn what feels like meaningless work into meaningful work. When, in my day job, I adopted the goal of making my colleagues more effective by providing them with the data they asked for (and more) quickly and accurately, what had been tedious 'SQL bashing' became meaningful. (Especially when it meant that customers got money from us: "how can I help our customers prosper today?" I used to ask one of my colleagues.)
The idea that it's not so much what your want to achieve, but that you do something to achieve it, can seem peculiar. Isn't a life spent curing people more meaningful than one spent making money in the markets? Maybe it is more valuable to other people, but the sense of meaning is personal. A doctor could feel that her efforts (to cure drug addicts) were meaningless wasted effort, and a trader could feel his efforts (on behalf of a pension fund) were useful and meaningful in that it provided money to pay the pensioners.
Or as Michael Cherrito says
For me, the action is the juice.
There's a (possibly apocryphal) story about a man who was having a slow recovery after heart surgery. One day the doctor suggested he put something on his bedside cabinet to remind him of why he was getting well. A couple of days later the doctor returns and is shocked to find a bottle of whisky and a carton of cigarettes on the man’s cabinet. “What’s all this?” the doctor asks, and the man reminds him about his suggestion. “Well, I meant a photograph of your wife and children, or a pastime like walking or sailing,” the doctor stutters. The man looks at him. “I’m not married,” he explains, “and I’ve worked hard all my life. I have no hobbies. This, the whisky and cigarettes, this is what I like to do, and it’s why I want to get better.” And the doctor did indeed notice that the man had improved even over the last two days.
The point of that story is exactly that what provides us with meaning, or motivation, is intensely personal, and may be incomprehensible to someone else. What matters is that the man started to get better, which was the point of the exercise. As with all decisions, one has to take the consequences on the chin without complaint, and not ask for a Government bail-out.
If you are religious, then God brings meaning, through your service for him in this life.(*)
Conversely, changing the objective can sometimes turn what feels like meaningless work into meaningful work. When, in my day job, I adopted the goal of making my colleagues more effective by providing them with the data they asked for (and more) quickly and accurately, what had been tedious 'SQL bashing' became meaningful. (Especially when it meant that customers got money from us: "how can I help our customers prosper today?" I used to ask one of my colleagues.)
The idea that it's not so much what your want to achieve, but that you do something to achieve it, can seem peculiar. Isn't a life spent curing people more meaningful than one spent making money in the markets? Maybe it is more valuable to other people, but the sense of meaning is personal. A doctor could feel that her efforts (to cure drug addicts) were meaningless wasted effort, and a trader could feel his efforts (on behalf of a pension fund) were useful and meaningful in that it provided money to pay the pensioners.
Or as Michael Cherrito says
For me, the action is the juice.
There's a (possibly apocryphal) story about a man who was having a slow recovery after heart surgery. One day the doctor suggested he put something on his bedside cabinet to remind him of why he was getting well. A couple of days later the doctor returns and is shocked to find a bottle of whisky and a carton of cigarettes on the man’s cabinet. “What’s all this?” the doctor asks, and the man reminds him about his suggestion. “Well, I meant a photograph of your wife and children, or a pastime like walking or sailing,” the doctor stutters. The man looks at him. “I’m not married,” he explains, “and I’ve worked hard all my life. I have no hobbies. This, the whisky and cigarettes, this is what I like to do, and it’s why I want to get better.” And the doctor did indeed notice that the man had improved even over the last two days.
The point of that story is exactly that what provides us with meaning, or motivation, is intensely personal, and may be incomprehensible to someone else. What matters is that the man started to get better, which was the point of the exercise. As with all decisions, one has to take the consequences on the chin without complaint, and not ask for a Government bail-out.
Friday 4 February 2022
What I've Learned So Far From Tradesman Videos
Water.
Lots of water.
High-pressure water.
And drainage.
Steam is a miracle-worker.
Learn how to spray wide and evenly from a spray bottle. Get some strength in your trigger finger.
Power tools. Everyone uses power tools.
Specialised tools. Carpet cleaners use a special long centrifuge.
A workshop with jig-saws and drilling turrets.
Tape, nails, screws, drill bits, nuts and bolts, rawlpugs, in all sizes; glue, solvent, and cleaners; spare tins and plastic bowls; saws, files, and other tools you don't know exist and won't use again.
The car detailers use a special brushes to clean tirewalls, and other special brushes to get round all the chrome and grilles. They have vacuum cleaners with long flexible hoses. They take the front seats out. You and I have no idea what's involved in taking the front seats out.
Trade products, not stuff from the supermarket. Especially Trade Paint.
Sometimes you need the chemicals. You know which chemicals you need, right?
Most of the time spent on a painting and decorating job is not spent painting or decorating. It's spent on prep. Most of the time on any job is spent on prep.
Putting down sheets to protect against dust, stray paint and cut down the clean-up time.
Only plastic sheets protect against paint spills.
Filling up little holes, sanding down little lumps, sanding old paint surfaces.
The more time you put into prep, the less time you put into the activity itself.
Use masking tape. The guy saying you too can paint a straight line has forgotten how long it took him to learn.
Practice. Lots of practice.
Cleaning the outside is easy. It's cleaning the inside that's difficult.
If you clean the dirt off one side, a lot of it just goes through the material to the other.
But the thing I really learned is... some people are able to live with amounts of filth and dirt I find unimaginable. When you see them - in the 'customer reaction' shot - they look like ordinary people. Some of them will bring the same thing back to be cleaned only six months later.
Lots of water.
High-pressure water.
And drainage.
Steam is a miracle-worker.
Learn how to spray wide and evenly from a spray bottle. Get some strength in your trigger finger.
Power tools. Everyone uses power tools.
Specialised tools. Carpet cleaners use a special long centrifuge.
A workshop with jig-saws and drilling turrets.
Tape, nails, screws, drill bits, nuts and bolts, rawlpugs, in all sizes; glue, solvent, and cleaners; spare tins and plastic bowls; saws, files, and other tools you don't know exist and won't use again.
The car detailers use a special brushes to clean tirewalls, and other special brushes to get round all the chrome and grilles. They have vacuum cleaners with long flexible hoses. They take the front seats out. You and I have no idea what's involved in taking the front seats out.
Trade products, not stuff from the supermarket. Especially Trade Paint.
Sometimes you need the chemicals. You know which chemicals you need, right?
Most of the time spent on a painting and decorating job is not spent painting or decorating. It's spent on prep. Most of the time on any job is spent on prep.
Putting down sheets to protect against dust, stray paint and cut down the clean-up time.
Only plastic sheets protect against paint spills.
Filling up little holes, sanding down little lumps, sanding old paint surfaces.
The more time you put into prep, the less time you put into the activity itself.
Use masking tape. The guy saying you too can paint a straight line has forgotten how long it took him to learn.
Practice. Lots of practice.
Cleaning the outside is easy. It's cleaning the inside that's difficult.
If you clean the dirt off one side, a lot of it just goes through the material to the other.
But the thing I really learned is... some people are able to live with amounts of filth and dirt I find unimaginable. When you see them - in the 'customer reaction' shot - they look like ordinary people. Some of them will bring the same thing back to be cleaned only six months later.
Friday 14 January 2022
Forming Habits Instead of Setting Goals
Despite all the hype, a salaryman doesn't need any self-discipline or inner drive. What he needs is the ability to grind and the fortitude not to run screaming from it all.
Consider how my waking days went. 05:15 - 08:00: wake up, breakfast, commute, sit in cafe, walk to work; 08:00 - 16:00: work; 16:00 - 17:30: travel to gym and work out; 17:30 - 18:45: commute; 18:45 - 21:30: supper and maybe watch a movie or a couple of episodes of something.
That leaves about two hours free time in the evening.
How much effort did I have to put into filling my time?
None. My big decision was what to read on the train.
Now I don't have a job.
Now I have to make decisions?
One thing I know: direction, plans, goals, and self-discipline are not the tools I need.
That's externalising one's motivation: it's why gurus say we should tell our friends what we want to achieve and have them "keep us honest".
That's how jobs work.
The way our time works is that there are things we have to do, and having done those (aka "been productive"), we do things we enjoy doing. Which doesn't mean lazing in the sunshine - though I bet it does on the Northern Mediterranean coast - and could mean doing things that are challenging in Millennial-speak. I'm not sure what kind of challenging I would be interested in, but I'm pretty sure You Tube rabbit holes aren't it. Or spending too long reading the newspaper (on my iPad, of course).
I think the trick is to do the compulsory stuff (exercise, walk, food shopping, cooking and cleaning) first and early, and then I have the rest of the day to do anything or everything else.
Which is a habit it will take a few weeks to form.
Consider how my waking days went. 05:15 - 08:00: wake up, breakfast, commute, sit in cafe, walk to work; 08:00 - 16:00: work; 16:00 - 17:30: travel to gym and work out; 17:30 - 18:45: commute; 18:45 - 21:30: supper and maybe watch a movie or a couple of episodes of something.
That leaves about two hours free time in the evening.
How much effort did I have to put into filling my time?
None. My big decision was what to read on the train.
Now I don't have a job.
Now I have to make decisions?
One thing I know: direction, plans, goals, and self-discipline are not the tools I need.
That's externalising one's motivation: it's why gurus say we should tell our friends what we want to achieve and have them "keep us honest".
That's how jobs work.
The way our time works is that there are things we have to do, and having done those (aka "been productive"), we do things we enjoy doing. Which doesn't mean lazing in the sunshine - though I bet it does on the Northern Mediterranean coast - and could mean doing things that are challenging in Millennial-speak. I'm not sure what kind of challenging I would be interested in, but I'm pretty sure You Tube rabbit holes aren't it. Or spending too long reading the newspaper (on my iPad, of course).
I think the trick is to do the compulsory stuff (exercise, walk, food shopping, cooking and cleaning) first and early, and then I have the rest of the day to do anything or everything else.
Which is a habit it will take a few weeks to form.
Friday 19 November 2021
Living Right Takes Character, Not Purpose
You know what I hear far too much?
That our collective problem is a lack of meaning / purpose / connection with others / (enter something else that post-modern Capitalism doesn't encourage here).
If only we didn't do b*******t jobs for ungrateful bosses, and we had supportive connections with our neighbours and family, didn't eat meat or burn carbon, saved a species every week, planted a tree every day... then we would feel fulfilled and happy and not do sad things like binge eat / drink / watch TV series / play computer games / (enter things you wish other people would stop doing here)
Hah!
It takes real character to accept that your life is insignificant, and yet still behave as if you are a worthwhile human being.
Go to work, exercise, eat right, not drink too much, keep yourself and your digs clean and neat, see your friends and relatives, save for the future, and keep yourself entertained and interested in something.
Live right, even if you don't know why.
Allez en avant, et la foi vous viendra, as D'Alembert is supposed to have said.
That our collective problem is a lack of meaning / purpose / connection with others / (enter something else that post-modern Capitalism doesn't encourage here).
If only we didn't do b*******t jobs for ungrateful bosses, and we had supportive connections with our neighbours and family, didn't eat meat or burn carbon, saved a species every week, planted a tree every day... then we would feel fulfilled and happy and not do sad things like binge eat / drink / watch TV series / play computer games / (enter things you wish other people would stop doing here)
Hah!
It takes real character to accept that your life is insignificant, and yet still behave as if you are a worthwhile human being.
Go to work, exercise, eat right, not drink too much, keep yourself and your digs clean and neat, see your friends and relatives, save for the future, and keep yourself entertained and interested in something.
Live right, even if you don't know why.
Allez en avant, et la foi vous viendra, as D'Alembert is supposed to have said.
Second-Best Housekeeping Productivity Hack
(The best is to pay for a cleaner. Everyone living in a shared flat or house should do that.)
Get a robot vacuum cleaner.
Really.
Vacuuming is a chore. Not everyone feels that way, but normal people do.
How good were these robo-vac things?
I watched the You Tube review videos, and decided that the base-level Eufy 11S Max would suit my needs just fine, as well as being far more affordable than the ones that use GPS tracking to learn about your house so they know what to do in the master bedroom next time. You can YT the review videos using the name.
Prep the room: get all the wires off the ground, and I put small items of furniture on couch / bed. (I went round and used wire ties to lift a lot of wires off the floor. Which of course I should have done anyway.)
There are two basic modes:
a) you put the cleaner in a room, set it off, close the door and get on with something else somewhere else
b) you let it do the vacuuming, and go round with the damp cloth wiping down surfaces and skirting boards
Admit it, did you wipe down the skirting boards when you vacuumed? Thought so.
That's the productivity bit: you can do something else while it does the chore.
It can sense when it's on carpet and turns the vacuuming up a notch, and it can sense it's about to run out of landing, stop and turnaround. It doesn't fall downstairs.
Don't be control-freaky, it wanders about and eventually covers everywhere it can reach. You do have to get into the corners, but you probably missed those when vacuuming and had to do them specially. It has an 'edges' mode where it will go round the walls.
Empty the tray at the end of each session.
Admire your new cleaner digs.
(No. I'm not being paid. Buy a Robo-Vac if you want.)
Get a robot vacuum cleaner.
Really.
Vacuuming is a chore. Not everyone feels that way, but normal people do.
How good were these robo-vac things?
I watched the You Tube review videos, and decided that the base-level Eufy 11S Max would suit my needs just fine, as well as being far more affordable than the ones that use GPS tracking to learn about your house so they know what to do in the master bedroom next time. You can YT the review videos using the name.
Prep the room: get all the wires off the ground, and I put small items of furniture on couch / bed. (I went round and used wire ties to lift a lot of wires off the floor. Which of course I should have done anyway.)
There are two basic modes:
a) you put the cleaner in a room, set it off, close the door and get on with something else somewhere else
b) you let it do the vacuuming, and go round with the damp cloth wiping down surfaces and skirting boards
Admit it, did you wipe down the skirting boards when you vacuumed? Thought so.
That's the productivity bit: you can do something else while it does the chore.
It can sense when it's on carpet and turns the vacuuming up a notch, and it can sense it's about to run out of landing, stop and turnaround. It doesn't fall downstairs.
Don't be control-freaky, it wanders about and eventually covers everywhere it can reach. You do have to get into the corners, but you probably missed those when vacuuming and had to do them specially. It has an 'edges' mode where it will go round the walls.
Empty the tray at the end of each session.
Admire your new cleaner digs.
(No. I'm not being paid. Buy a Robo-Vac if you want.)
Tuesday 16 November 2021
In Praise of A Well-Chosen Indulgence
I've been watching how-to-record-your-music videos recently and ran across the wonderfully over-the-top Spectre Sound Studios. In this one he talks briefly about debt and how it should be avoided. Turns out he owns his house, studio, and car. How? Because, in his words, he bought what he needed, not what he wanted.
Spectre Sound was saying: don't spend £1,000 on the fancy gear when £200 will get you something that will do the job well enough that the audience won't notice the difference.
Most companies do this. Most companies buy the least-cost, lowest spec-for-what-they-think-is-needed kit. Sometimes they get away with it, and sometimes they lose thousands of hours a week from laptops that take ten minutes to boot up and shut down, and are unusable for an hour when doing weekly updates (ask me how I know). The company doesn't care that their staff feel that they aren't worth decent kit. That's what economic-value-optimisation makes us feel like. Not important enough for the Good Stuff.
In order, there's
Spectre Sound was saying: don't spend £1,000 on the fancy gear when £200 will get you something that will do the job well enough that the audience won't notice the difference.
Most companies do this. Most companies buy the least-cost, lowest spec-for-what-they-think-is-needed kit. Sometimes they get away with it, and sometimes they lose thousands of hours a week from laptops that take ten minutes to boot up and shut down, and are unusable for an hour when doing weekly updates (ask me how I know). The company doesn't care that their staff feel that they aren't worth decent kit. That's what economic-value-optimisation makes us feel like. Not important enough for the Good Stuff.
In order, there's
a) doing without
b) buying the least-cost, lowest-spec
c) buying nice so you don't buy twice
d) indulgence (buying something that's a little better than "nice" because it makes you feel warm and fuzzy)
e) wasting money buying specs or stuff you are never going to use.
For example, bread:
a) is not buying any bread because, well, who needs bread? you're not going to die if you don't have it b) is Tesco White Sliced c) is a sourdough from a supermarket d) is a loaf from Paul or some other such brand e) is any loaf from Whole Foods or an "artisan" baker with their own shop in Notting Hill or Greenwich
The base-line for judging indulgence or waste is not "go without". Nor is it Tesco White Sliced, which barely qualifies as bread. The baseline is the cheapest "buy nice" option. It's deviation either way from "Buy Nice" that needs to be justified. We should justify buying low-quality-and-cheap as well as higher-quality-and-more-expensive.
Buying what you want, without wasting money, just makes you feel like, in the words of the ad, you're worth it.
(Now you ask, I buy whatever shampoo is on sale, but not the diluted cheap own-brand stuff.)
This is why I have always had the suspicion that people who buy what they want rather than what they need are a little more fun and little richer and softer in texture. (Assuming they aren't being stupid with the "wants".) By adopting a very narrow definition of "need" - as in "you're not going to die if you don't go on holiday / only drink tap water / never eat chocolate" - one can lead a very miserable life.
Until April 2020, my indulgence was membership at a fancy gym in Soho: there are gyms that cost more, but most cost less. A lot less. But I enjoyed and appreciated it. I joined my local The Gym in April this year. I don't dislike it, but I don't feel a little thrill walking through the door either. It's functional, and that's it. The local fancy gym charges not far short of what I was paying for my previous gym and is over-priced for what it provides. "Need" rules in this case.
I may be missing a well-chosen indulgence.
a) is not buying any bread because, well, who needs bread? you're not going to die if you don't have it b) is Tesco White Sliced c) is a sourdough from a supermarket d) is a loaf from Paul or some other such brand e) is any loaf from Whole Foods or an "artisan" baker with their own shop in Notting Hill or Greenwich
The base-line for judging indulgence or waste is not "go without". Nor is it Tesco White Sliced, which barely qualifies as bread. The baseline is the cheapest "buy nice" option. It's deviation either way from "Buy Nice" that needs to be justified. We should justify buying low-quality-and-cheap as well as higher-quality-and-more-expensive.
Buying what you want, without wasting money, just makes you feel like, in the words of the ad, you're worth it.
(Now you ask, I buy whatever shampoo is on sale, but not the diluted cheap own-brand stuff.)
This is why I have always had the suspicion that people who buy what they want rather than what they need are a little more fun and little richer and softer in texture. (Assuming they aren't being stupid with the "wants".) By adopting a very narrow definition of "need" - as in "you're not going to die if you don't go on holiday / only drink tap water / never eat chocolate" - one can lead a very miserable life.
Until April 2020, my indulgence was membership at a fancy gym in Soho: there are gyms that cost more, but most cost less. A lot less. But I enjoyed and appreciated it. I joined my local The Gym in April this year. I don't dislike it, but I don't feel a little thrill walking through the door either. It's functional, and that's it. The local fancy gym charges not far short of what I was paying for my previous gym and is over-priced for what it provides. "Need" rules in this case.
I may be missing a well-chosen indulgence.
Friday 1 October 2021
On Being Lazy
Lazy is unwilling to do work or use energy.
Engineers use the word to describe part of a system that doesn't do anything unless it has to.
Lazy people don't avoid doing things. (That's indolence.)
They avoid making a big fuss and bother about getting whatever it is done.
Lazy people tell the truth. Then they don't have to remember what they said.
Lazy people tidy the house up once and then put stuff back where they got it from.
Lazy people have a routine. Then they don't have to think about what to do.
Lazy people have simple wardrobes. Then they don't have to think about what to wear.
Lazy people cook simple, healthy food. Because it takes three minutes to make an omelette, and thirty minutes to leave a chicken breast in the oven.
Lazy people work for a living. Have you any idea how hard criminals graft?
It's how you do the work, not the work you do, that makes you lazy.
Lazy people use the right tools for the job. It's easier that way.
Lazy people start a new job by working hard to understand and master it. Then they can do it all in the morning and kick back the rest of the day.
Napoleon said he preferred clever lazy Generals: they would get what he wanted done with the minimum of fuss. What did he do with the stupid, energetic ones? Those he had shot.
Lazy people do things that need doing, not things that some busybody thinks should be done.
Lazy people have time to do the things they want to do, because they are not busy doing make-work.
"Busy" does not mean "useful". It means "occupied with a task" or "having too much to do" or just "fussy".
Lazy people work smart, not hard.
And never do today what could be done tomorrow if there's something else you'd rather be doing today.
Because, when someone else describes you as "lazy", what they mean is you're not doing what they want you to be doing, when they want you to do it.
The boss gets to call you lazy, because he's paying.
No-one else does, because they aren't.
Engineers use the word to describe part of a system that doesn't do anything unless it has to.
Lazy people don't avoid doing things. (That's indolence.)
They avoid making a big fuss and bother about getting whatever it is done.
Lazy people tell the truth. Then they don't have to remember what they said.
Lazy people tidy the house up once and then put stuff back where they got it from.
Lazy people have a routine. Then they don't have to think about what to do.
Lazy people have simple wardrobes. Then they don't have to think about what to wear.
Lazy people cook simple, healthy food. Because it takes three minutes to make an omelette, and thirty minutes to leave a chicken breast in the oven.
Lazy people work for a living. Have you any idea how hard criminals graft?
It's how you do the work, not the work you do, that makes you lazy.
Lazy people use the right tools for the job. It's easier that way.
Lazy people start a new job by working hard to understand and master it. Then they can do it all in the morning and kick back the rest of the day.
Napoleon said he preferred clever lazy Generals: they would get what he wanted done with the minimum of fuss. What did he do with the stupid, energetic ones? Those he had shot.
Lazy people do things that need doing, not things that some busybody thinks should be done.
Lazy people have time to do the things they want to do, because they are not busy doing make-work.
"Busy" does not mean "useful". It means "occupied with a task" or "having too much to do" or just "fussy".
Lazy people work smart, not hard.
And never do today what could be done tomorrow if there's something else you'd rather be doing today.
Because, when someone else describes you as "lazy", what they mean is you're not doing what they want you to be doing, when they want you to do it.
The boss gets to call you lazy, because he's paying.
No-one else does, because they aren't.
Thursday 5 August 2021
Buy Nice or Buy Twice
... or why you shouldn't spend your money on four mid-priced watches, but save for one premium one.
I've heard buying advice like this occasionally.
The idea is that, by buying something that's right up against, or even slightly below, what you really need, you may well wind up buying the same thing but with better specs and a higher price within a year or so.
This motto works well computers. Sure you can live with the minimum spec of the new Mac Air, but why not sling in some extra RAM and the next internal storage up? Just in case you suddenly want to start editing 1080p footage from a Go-Pro or something. The extra money gives you headroom and options. Maybe you use them, maybe you don't. At least you won't have to buy another one with the RAM and storage when you do decide to edit video. Gamers will have the same considerations over graphics cards, frame rates and other such.
In general, get the better tool in the price range. You don't have to get a hand-made German chef knife - that's silly - but that cheap Chinese junk on Amazon (is there anything except cheap Chinese junk on Amazon?) won't give you the lifetime or satisfaction of a Sabatier or a Global. Ever noticed that most of the professional builders you've seen have De Walt power tools? It's not because De Walt are the cheapest.
Or as the guys at my local Dulux Pro shop say: don't get the dog paint(*), get the Trade Paint.
Does this advice work for cars? If you need a small car with stellar fuel economy, upgrading to a BMW sports car is not meeting your goals. However, there may be a trade-off between one mini and another, and maybe getting the larger storage capacity and a little extra heft in the engine might be useful, even if it does do 5 mpg less. I would never buy a new car, or spend much more than £8,000 on a recent second-hand one. Given how I use cars, it's not worth it. If I drove long distances on a weekly basis, then I could make a case for a 2-litre recent model of something well-made. Some people like to buy new cars: different strokes for different folks.
At the other end of the scale, this is really bad advice for buying art. Buying art, you buy what you can live with and afford. There isn't a step up from buying a Calder mobile, or a small Sergeant watercolour, despite anything the gallerist might say. You buy nice or you don't buy at all.
Somewhere in between is the boy-toy stuff: cameras, hi-fi, watches, and for all I know, fishing rods.
I am never going to spend £6,000 (or even £1,000) on a watch. I don't trust myself not to lose it, or wreck it. You know how that goes: the cheap beater lasts for ever and is glued to your wrist, the expensive item falls off your wrist every chance you give it and a few it made for itself. But every now and then I get a yen for a style of watch, which I can get at the "affordable" price ranges. I'm not collecting, and I'm not looking for an heirloom. I want something that looks different from what I have already. The collectors are right: "affordable" <> "collectable". Also, the idea of collecting expensive watches is a marketing ploy by the luxury companies.
I'm not sure about spending £2,000 on headphones. Spend that on an amplifier, and you could be in for a treat. I'm not convinced that the potential to make similar improvements in headphones is there. Nor am I convinced that I would hear it, given the condition of my ears after all these years. I did hear different styles of sound on a test session recently, but not improvements within the same style of sound.
How about furniture? That stuff is expensive. A really nice wingback armchair can be £1,000+. Assemble a less fancy one from IKEA for about £250. I can't justify that kind of money to myself. Other people could, and I bet they live in bigger houses and do a fair amount of entertaining. But, buy too cheap, and furniture will fall apart in double-quick time, and will need replacing at least once, while the better piece would still have been going strong.
The same consideration applies to shoes and clothes. Shoes from a Northampton cobbler will last five times as long as high-street fashion stuff.
Buy nice or buy twice. Sure. As long as you are buying for a purpose and 'nice' is affordable (even if you have to cut out drinking for the rest of the month).
(*) Dulux' retail mascot is a long-haired Old English Sheepdog, now nicknamed 'Dulux dogs'. Dulux Trade paint is why professionals do a way better job than you do.
I've heard buying advice like this occasionally.
The idea is that, by buying something that's right up against, or even slightly below, what you really need, you may well wind up buying the same thing but with better specs and a higher price within a year or so.
This motto works well computers. Sure you can live with the minimum spec of the new Mac Air, but why not sling in some extra RAM and the next internal storage up? Just in case you suddenly want to start editing 1080p footage from a Go-Pro or something. The extra money gives you headroom and options. Maybe you use them, maybe you don't. At least you won't have to buy another one with the RAM and storage when you do decide to edit video. Gamers will have the same considerations over graphics cards, frame rates and other such.
In general, get the better tool in the price range. You don't have to get a hand-made German chef knife - that's silly - but that cheap Chinese junk on Amazon (is there anything except cheap Chinese junk on Amazon?) won't give you the lifetime or satisfaction of a Sabatier or a Global. Ever noticed that most of the professional builders you've seen have De Walt power tools? It's not because De Walt are the cheapest.
Or as the guys at my local Dulux Pro shop say: don't get the dog paint(*), get the Trade Paint.
Does this advice work for cars? If you need a small car with stellar fuel economy, upgrading to a BMW sports car is not meeting your goals. However, there may be a trade-off between one mini and another, and maybe getting the larger storage capacity and a little extra heft in the engine might be useful, even if it does do 5 mpg less. I would never buy a new car, or spend much more than £8,000 on a recent second-hand one. Given how I use cars, it's not worth it. If I drove long distances on a weekly basis, then I could make a case for a 2-litre recent model of something well-made. Some people like to buy new cars: different strokes for different folks.
At the other end of the scale, this is really bad advice for buying art. Buying art, you buy what you can live with and afford. There isn't a step up from buying a Calder mobile, or a small Sergeant watercolour, despite anything the gallerist might say. You buy nice or you don't buy at all.
Somewhere in between is the boy-toy stuff: cameras, hi-fi, watches, and for all I know, fishing rods.
I am never going to spend £6,000 (or even £1,000) on a watch. I don't trust myself not to lose it, or wreck it. You know how that goes: the cheap beater lasts for ever and is glued to your wrist, the expensive item falls off your wrist every chance you give it and a few it made for itself. But every now and then I get a yen for a style of watch, which I can get at the "affordable" price ranges. I'm not collecting, and I'm not looking for an heirloom. I want something that looks different from what I have already. The collectors are right: "affordable" <> "collectable". Also, the idea of collecting expensive watches is a marketing ploy by the luxury companies.
I'm not sure about spending £2,000 on headphones. Spend that on an amplifier, and you could be in for a treat. I'm not convinced that the potential to make similar improvements in headphones is there. Nor am I convinced that I would hear it, given the condition of my ears after all these years. I did hear different styles of sound on a test session recently, but not improvements within the same style of sound.
How about furniture? That stuff is expensive. A really nice wingback armchair can be £1,000+. Assemble a less fancy one from IKEA for about £250. I can't justify that kind of money to myself. Other people could, and I bet they live in bigger houses and do a fair amount of entertaining. But, buy too cheap, and furniture will fall apart in double-quick time, and will need replacing at least once, while the better piece would still have been going strong.
The same consideration applies to shoes and clothes. Shoes from a Northampton cobbler will last five times as long as high-street fashion stuff.
Buy nice or buy twice. Sure. As long as you are buying for a purpose and 'nice' is affordable (even if you have to cut out drinking for the rest of the month).
(*) Dulux' retail mascot is a long-haired Old English Sheepdog, now nicknamed 'Dulux dogs'. Dulux Trade paint is why professionals do a way better job than you do.
Friday 23 July 2021
Middle-Class Straight Edge
Straight-edge was a movement that started in the 1980s in the punk / hardcore scene as a reaction to the excessive use of drink, pills, and other intoxicants at the time. They adopted a fairly simple creed: don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs. Not screwing around was optional. As ever, some of the cause-parasites (vegans, animal rights, chastity) hooked onto it. It wasn't popular with feminists or left-wingers: any movement consisting mostly of white teenage males won't be. By the end of the 1990's it had more or less wound up.
But you can't keep a good idea down. Straight-edge was about avoiding the things that screwed up your head and life. For teenagers, that's mostly booze, drugs, and cigarettes. Now take the principle and apply it to the life of a middle-class man in the early years of his career. What screws up his life?
Booze, drugs and cigarettes sure don't help. Plus our young man can save a lot by not buying that stuff, and also by avoiding what passes as the life-style that goes with them. Saving is Good, hookers 'n blow are Bad.
The next one is: avoid anything that lets the State into your private life. The way to keep social workers, unemployment bureaucrats, Family Court and Child Services out of your life is, yep, you guessed: stay employed, pay enough taxes to stay under the radar, stay single, and don't have children.
The next one is: avoid crazies, users, losers and abusers. Oddly, I think it's got easier for the middle-classes to do that in the last few decades. Moving to universities across the country, and then again to jobs across the country, takes a brutal toll on the unfiltered bunch of people we knew from school and the old neighbourhood. By the time our middle-class young man is set up with his degree and job in GloboCorp, he's left most of the old bad influences behind, and making friends after the late-twenties... we know how that goes
The next one is: avoid buying anything with debt, except the house you're going to live in. This will pretty much mean you don't buy s**t you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you don't like.
The next one is: learn how to get what you need from the gatekeepers (official or self-appointed). Learn how the gatekeepers think, what rules they have to follow, what BS they are obliged to believe by their profession, what the magic words are to get what you need, how to behave. Learn Game, which after all, is about dealing with gatekeepers.
A lot of middle-class people live bits of this from time to time. What makes Straight Edge is consistency and follow-through. No exceptions for That Special Person, or Because It Was Christmas (or whenever). Consistency makes the believer.
But you can't keep a good idea down. Straight-edge was about avoiding the things that screwed up your head and life. For teenagers, that's mostly booze, drugs, and cigarettes. Now take the principle and apply it to the life of a middle-class man in the early years of his career. What screws up his life?
Booze, drugs and cigarettes sure don't help. Plus our young man can save a lot by not buying that stuff, and also by avoiding what passes as the life-style that goes with them. Saving is Good, hookers 'n blow are Bad.
The next one is: avoid anything that lets the State into your private life. The way to keep social workers, unemployment bureaucrats, Family Court and Child Services out of your life is, yep, you guessed: stay employed, pay enough taxes to stay under the radar, stay single, and don't have children.
The next one is: avoid crazies, users, losers and abusers. Oddly, I think it's got easier for the middle-classes to do that in the last few decades. Moving to universities across the country, and then again to jobs across the country, takes a brutal toll on the unfiltered bunch of people we knew from school and the old neighbourhood. By the time our middle-class young man is set up with his degree and job in GloboCorp, he's left most of the old bad influences behind, and making friends after the late-twenties... we know how that goes
The next one is: avoid buying anything with debt, except the house you're going to live in. This will pretty much mean you don't buy s**t you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you don't like.
The next one is: learn how to get what you need from the gatekeepers (official or self-appointed). Learn how the gatekeepers think, what rules they have to follow, what BS they are obliged to believe by their profession, what the magic words are to get what you need, how to behave. Learn Game, which after all, is about dealing with gatekeepers.
A lot of middle-class people live bits of this from time to time. What makes Straight Edge is consistency and follow-through. No exceptions for That Special Person, or Because It Was Christmas (or whenever). Consistency makes the believer.
Monday 5 July 2021
Things and Experiences and Happiness
I watched two YT videos recently which hit a number of spots. I'll be riffing on them over the next few weeks. This
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_sqQHdvcE
was one, in which the speaker referred to some research that suggested that if you want to spend money to make you feel happy, then buy experiences not things.
After I finished nodding along, my inner philosopher wanted some nuance.
Because buy experiences not things is one of those rules-of-thumb that requires us to fill in all sorts of blanks.
Any experience? Like travelling on a Japanese subway in the rush hour? Dealing with the Italian bureaucracy? Getting your teeth drilled?
As for things... don't buy a painting, or a sculpture? Don't buy novels, or textbooks? As for that car because you live in the country, nah. That's a thing. Things bad.
Obviously not.
Listening to music is an experience, and the live music industry would like it if you would immediately equate 'experience' with 'live'. A concert is an experience for sure. The musicians play in a different way than they do in the studio, and there's the whole-event items: travel there, the concert hall itself, the seats (okay, we'll pass that over, because seating is not always wonderful), the audience, the intervals, leaving at the end into the night, the comments you exchange with whoever you are with, the journey home (might want to pass over that one as well if it's by public transport).
Listening to music at home is an experience, speaker-fi or head-fi, though not as multi-faceted as a concert. Home listening needs gear: amplifiers, speakers, CD players, streamers, turntables, headphones... these are all tools to provide the home listening experience.
Buying tools to provide an experience, especially one that can be repeated at nearly zero marginal cost, is okay.
Tools are things we use to produce or to do something.
A watch is a tool if you wear it to tell the time.
But if it's the sixth one in your collection and you bought it because of the brand and image - then it's a 'bad thing'
A car is a tool to travel in.
But if all you do is drive round the suburbs, and you bought a Mercedes 500, you bought a 'bad thing'.
If you bought your Naim Uniti Atom because it's a well-reviewed super-integrated amp and you wanted a compact piece of kit rather than a bunch of separates, then it's a tool. If you bought it because it looks cool and trendy and makes you feel like an audiophile, then it's a 'bad thing'.
A piece of jewellery on certain women is a tool: it helps show them off, and that's part of their job. A fancy Rolex on your wrist just marks you out to the local muggers.
This doesn't mean that anything but the cheapest is a show-off, over-compensating piece of glitter.
Up to a certain point, there's a good relationship between price and quality. Quality tools are always acceptable.
When they have rubies embedded in them? That's way over the line.
If a thing gives you an experience - such as a signed first edition - then it's a 'good thing'. But if it doesn't, and you just bought it because that's what you think you're supposed to do, then it's a 'bad thing'.
After I finished nodding along, my inner philosopher wanted some nuance.
Because buy experiences not things is one of those rules-of-thumb that requires us to fill in all sorts of blanks.
Any experience? Like travelling on a Japanese subway in the rush hour? Dealing with the Italian bureaucracy? Getting your teeth drilled?
As for things... don't buy a painting, or a sculpture? Don't buy novels, or textbooks? As for that car because you live in the country, nah. That's a thing. Things bad.
Obviously not.
Listening to music is an experience, and the live music industry would like it if you would immediately equate 'experience' with 'live'. A concert is an experience for sure. The musicians play in a different way than they do in the studio, and there's the whole-event items: travel there, the concert hall itself, the seats (okay, we'll pass that over, because seating is not always wonderful), the audience, the intervals, leaving at the end into the night, the comments you exchange with whoever you are with, the journey home (might want to pass over that one as well if it's by public transport).
Listening to music at home is an experience, speaker-fi or head-fi, though not as multi-faceted as a concert. Home listening needs gear: amplifiers, speakers, CD players, streamers, turntables, headphones... these are all tools to provide the home listening experience.
Buying tools to provide an experience, especially one that can be repeated at nearly zero marginal cost, is okay.
Tools are things we use to produce or to do something.
A watch is a tool if you wear it to tell the time.
But if it's the sixth one in your collection and you bought it because of the brand and image - then it's a 'bad thing'
A car is a tool to travel in.
But if all you do is drive round the suburbs, and you bought a Mercedes 500, you bought a 'bad thing'.
If you bought your Naim Uniti Atom because it's a well-reviewed super-integrated amp and you wanted a compact piece of kit rather than a bunch of separates, then it's a tool. If you bought it because it looks cool and trendy and makes you feel like an audiophile, then it's a 'bad thing'.
A piece of jewellery on certain women is a tool: it helps show them off, and that's part of their job. A fancy Rolex on your wrist just marks you out to the local muggers.
This doesn't mean that anything but the cheapest is a show-off, over-compensating piece of glitter.
Up to a certain point, there's a good relationship between price and quality. Quality tools are always acceptable.
When they have rubies embedded in them? That's way over the line.
If a thing gives you an experience - such as a signed first edition - then it's a 'good thing'. But if it doesn't, and you just bought it because that's what you think you're supposed to do, then it's a 'bad thing'.
Thursday 21 May 2020
How To Tell An Expert From An Activist With A PhD
Expertise is about knowledge. There are two kinds of knowledge: knowing-how and knowing-that. Some knowing-hows require knowing a lot of knowing-that, but nearly all of us know-how to do things without knowing all the thats behind what we do. Do you know how fuel injection works? Doesn't stop you driving a car.
Expertise requires something that someone can be an expert at. There must be a stable body of effective practice, successfully-tested theory and facts. There can be differences of opinion, controversies and changes in this corpus. Too few and we should suspect a professionally-imposed conformity; too many and the subject stops being stable enough for expertise in it to be meaningful. What counts as too many or too few is itself a matter of judgement.
The subject must be manageable. It must be small enough for one person to get their arms round. If an expert is someone who know all the facts, or at least, knows where the facts may be found and absorbed quickly, then there can't be too many facts. Some subjects, like public health policy, or the dynamics of the climate, are just too large to be expert-friendly.
There are no expert witches, because there are no effective spells, and hence the theories have failed all the tests.
There are no experts on (the whole of) the Law of England and Wales. There are simply too many volumes of Halsbury's Laws of England. No one person can get their arms around it. That's why lawyers specialise.
There are experts at medical diagnosis, usually within a specialist field: the facts are few in number, the theories are simple (compared to Quantum Field Theory), while the techniques may be subtle.
What about computer modelling? Three things go into a computer model: the model of whatever it is; the program that embodies that model; and the values of the various coefficients and initial conditions of the model. Those are three different subjects. To model the spread of a virus, one needs to know some immunology, some epidemiology, and perhaps all sorts of things about how close people sit in offices, how many people come within a given distance of others in the course of a day, and so on. Then someone has to take all that and put it in equations and computer code. Then one needs to measure the value of the key parameters for that virus. If those are not known, the whole thing is pointless. The result has to be calibrated against previous epidemics as a test. Journalists never seem to ask modellers about that part of the process.
This needs team-work. Teams cannot be experts. A team might consist of experts at parts of the process, but there is no guarantee that the team members will work well together. The result may well still be a camel. (A phrase that is unfair to camels.)
How do you and I tell if someone is an expert?
First, the subject must sound like a proper specialism. Immunology is a specialism, 'the climate' is not. Epidemiology is, but only when it is being modest.
Second, if they are quoting computer models, not empirical studies, they are not experts. Experts deal in facts and successfully tested theories.
Third, if asked, experts give practical, useable advice that helps the client achieve their goals - or admit that there is nothing they can offer. Pseudo-experts jump to publish research that a) seems to lead directly to policy advice, that b) is in line with their ideology, and c) politicians or managers cannot or will not follow because of economic / social / legal / market / political realities. That last is essential. If what the politicians or managers do works, everyone's happy. If it fails, the experts can say that they advised something different. So they weren't wrong. They weren't right either, because their ideas are never actually put to the test.
Fourth, they do not use whatever it is to advance their social and political beliefs. Experts are not activists. Experts do not see our crisis as their opportunity.
Activists follow an ideology. Ideologies tell their followers what is right and what is wrong. There is no need to worry about facts or the quality of the theories and models: if it helps the cause, it's good, and if it doesn't, it goes in the bin. If the facts are different, that proves the world is corrupt and must be changed or burned down, not that the ideology is wrong. There is no debate, only persuasion; no information, only propaganda.
Activists are attracted to large subjects where there is plenty of ambiguity, complicated statistics, simplified computer modelling of complex systems, few if any opportunities to test any of the theories, and the appearance of relevance for social and political policy.
Once inside these subjects, activists aim to establish their ideology as the purpose of the subject: for example, if you don't buy Climate Change, you're not going to get a job in the UK Met Office. The central tenet of the ideology is binary: you are a believer or not. But in a twist known to everyone, one can't just pronounce the Shahada and go back to one's life: one has to take on all the cultural baggage.
Or perhaps, one should not pronounce the Shahada unless one is prepared to take on the cultural baggage. People who are not prepared to take on the baggage will avoid the institutions which demand adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, or their modern equivalents, and this is the intention. So much as naming the ideology on the website will deter the non-believers. Internal criticism is not so much actively silenced as recruited away. The old guard either stay quiet or leave.
Fifth, experts do not work in ideological institutions. Why not? Because of the risk they run should their research turn out to be contrary to the aims of the organisation. And because of credibility: once we know a man is being paid to follow a party line, we do not know if he is telling us to follow the party line because it is the best thing to do, or because his paycheque depends on it. Experts need their credibility. Activists just need to fill the air with noise.
So the next time you read an article quoting a piece of research about something in the news, that seems to have immediate policy relevance and fits in with a prevailing ideology, the authors are not experts, but a bunch of academics seeking their fifteen minutes of fame.
Because, sixth and most important, experts stopped talking to the media about the same time that journalists stopped reporting the news and started pushing ideology. Nobody who talks to The Guardian, or the BBC, is an expert. They are a propagandist for a dogma the media want to push.
Expertise requires something that someone can be an expert at. There must be a stable body of effective practice, successfully-tested theory and facts. There can be differences of opinion, controversies and changes in this corpus. Too few and we should suspect a professionally-imposed conformity; too many and the subject stops being stable enough for expertise in it to be meaningful. What counts as too many or too few is itself a matter of judgement.
The subject must be manageable. It must be small enough for one person to get their arms round. If an expert is someone who know all the facts, or at least, knows where the facts may be found and absorbed quickly, then there can't be too many facts. Some subjects, like public health policy, or the dynamics of the climate, are just too large to be expert-friendly.
There are no expert witches, because there are no effective spells, and hence the theories have failed all the tests.
There are no experts on (the whole of) the Law of England and Wales. There are simply too many volumes of Halsbury's Laws of England. No one person can get their arms around it. That's why lawyers specialise.
There are experts at medical diagnosis, usually within a specialist field: the facts are few in number, the theories are simple (compared to Quantum Field Theory), while the techniques may be subtle.
What about computer modelling? Three things go into a computer model: the model of whatever it is; the program that embodies that model; and the values of the various coefficients and initial conditions of the model. Those are three different subjects. To model the spread of a virus, one needs to know some immunology, some epidemiology, and perhaps all sorts of things about how close people sit in offices, how many people come within a given distance of others in the course of a day, and so on. Then someone has to take all that and put it in equations and computer code. Then one needs to measure the value of the key parameters for that virus. If those are not known, the whole thing is pointless. The result has to be calibrated against previous epidemics as a test. Journalists never seem to ask modellers about that part of the process.
This needs team-work. Teams cannot be experts. A team might consist of experts at parts of the process, but there is no guarantee that the team members will work well together. The result may well still be a camel. (A phrase that is unfair to camels.)
How do you and I tell if someone is an expert?
First, the subject must sound like a proper specialism. Immunology is a specialism, 'the climate' is not. Epidemiology is, but only when it is being modest.
Second, if they are quoting computer models, not empirical studies, they are not experts. Experts deal in facts and successfully tested theories.
Third, if asked, experts give practical, useable advice that helps the client achieve their goals - or admit that there is nothing they can offer. Pseudo-experts jump to publish research that a) seems to lead directly to policy advice, that b) is in line with their ideology, and c) politicians or managers cannot or will not follow because of economic / social / legal / market / political realities. That last is essential. If what the politicians or managers do works, everyone's happy. If it fails, the experts can say that they advised something different. So they weren't wrong. They weren't right either, because their ideas are never actually put to the test.
Fourth, they do not use whatever it is to advance their social and political beliefs. Experts are not activists. Experts do not see our crisis as their opportunity.
Activists follow an ideology. Ideologies tell their followers what is right and what is wrong. There is no need to worry about facts or the quality of the theories and models: if it helps the cause, it's good, and if it doesn't, it goes in the bin. If the facts are different, that proves the world is corrupt and must be changed or burned down, not that the ideology is wrong. There is no debate, only persuasion; no information, only propaganda.
Activists are attracted to large subjects where there is plenty of ambiguity, complicated statistics, simplified computer modelling of complex systems, few if any opportunities to test any of the theories, and the appearance of relevance for social and political policy.
Once inside these subjects, activists aim to establish their ideology as the purpose of the subject: for example, if you don't buy Climate Change, you're not going to get a job in the UK Met Office. The central tenet of the ideology is binary: you are a believer or not. But in a twist known to everyone, one can't just pronounce the Shahada and go back to one's life: one has to take on all the cultural baggage.
Or perhaps, one should not pronounce the Shahada unless one is prepared to take on the cultural baggage. People who are not prepared to take on the baggage will avoid the institutions which demand adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, or their modern equivalents, and this is the intention. So much as naming the ideology on the website will deter the non-believers. Internal criticism is not so much actively silenced as recruited away. The old guard either stay quiet or leave.
Fifth, experts do not work in ideological institutions. Why not? Because of the risk they run should their research turn out to be contrary to the aims of the organisation. And because of credibility: once we know a man is being paid to follow a party line, we do not know if he is telling us to follow the party line because it is the best thing to do, or because his paycheque depends on it. Experts need their credibility. Activists just need to fill the air with noise.
So the next time you read an article quoting a piece of research about something in the news, that seems to have immediate policy relevance and fits in with a prevailing ideology, the authors are not experts, but a bunch of academics seeking their fifteen minutes of fame.
Because, sixth and most important, experts stopped talking to the media about the same time that journalists stopped reporting the news and started pushing ideology. Nobody who talks to The Guardian, or the BBC, is an expert. They are a propagandist for a dogma the media want to push.
Thursday 23 January 2020
James Wallman's Time and How To Spend It
According to James Wallman, we Westerners have around five hours a day of spare time, but feel we rushed and don’t have any time for ourselves. He offers seven rules for richer, happier days.
Let’s establish just how silly the book is. This is an actual quote:
The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca. You can’t just walk the walk, you have to talk the talk. If you don’t believe you’re not making a pilgrimage, you’re just being a religious tourist. You can’t seek change on your way to Mecca: you have to be a pious Muslim already. The same applies to the Camino de Santiago, which is the pilgrimage across northern Spain to see the relics of St James of Compostella. Again, you can’t seek change on the Camino, you already have to be a practicing Catholic who believes in the power of relics. Or you’re just a sight-seer.
An Ayahuasca Ceremony involves taking a South American herbal hallucinogenic. You can read more here. It’s best done in South America, of course. The view out of a Newcastle tower block isn’t quite as conducive to spiritual reflection, and you probably couldn’t get the right guru to lead you.
So that gives you an idea of the level of depth of thought that has gone into this book.
Wallman’s book is full of hacks - tricks to make you feel better. As with all lists of hacks, some of these may work for you, others for me, and if we get a couple of useful hacks out of a book that costs £10, that’s good value for money. This is one reason these books sell: we know each one will have at least one thing we can use.
STORIES is Wallman's Big Hack.
According to STORIES, when we’re thinking of doing something, he says, we should ask:
Story - is this something I want the guys at the office or the next girlfriend to know I did? Transform - will this help me change in a way I want? Outside and Offline - pretty much self-explanatory Relationships - will it strengthen existing relationships or help me make new ones? Intense - will it be intense and memorable? Extraordinary - in some way? Status - will it connect me to others and be significant?
So, not chilling on the sofa watching Two or Three Things I Know About Her on DVD then.
But, if you’re seventeen, you’re with a bunch of other people from college, it’s your first trip to the Curzon Soho, and your generation has had the good sense to pronounce Nouvelle Vague movies cool, then watching Godard’s classic at a retrospective at the Curzon... that’s a Story.
It’s not so much the activity (aside from Outside and Offline) as the circumstances in which the activity is performed.
The giveaway sign of the inveterate hacker is that they dive straight for detailed, specific problems. There’s no overview, no stock-taking. Spend more time with your friends they say, whereas the correct question is Which of your friends are worth spending time with?
How much spare time do I really have? (Don’t count commuting, meal prep, morning and evening toilet, and all the hours between arriving and leaving work. Also don’t count shopping, washing, and other housework.)
What do I spend that spare time doing now? Which of those activities do I wish I could stop? Which are guilty pleasures? Which leave me feeling empty? Which leave me feeling tired in a bad way? In a good way?
Which of my friends and acquaintances are worth spending time with and why / why not? How can I spend more time with the worthy ones, and let the bad ones slide?
How much exercise am I getting? Is it the right kind? Does it wear me out or build me up?
What have I always wanted to do but haven’t yet done? Which can I afford to do? Which could I do on my next week off from work? Or at the next weekend?
What am I doing that I think I ‘ought’ to be doing, but I don’t really want to, and isn’t really giving me any benefits?
Those kinds of questions.
Walman forgets that everything we do can’t befunky intense and exceptional.
Sometimes it just has to be not junk. The trick is to find something else to do rather than fall down the black holes of TV, You Tube or whatever else counts as junk for us. At the end of a long day, with a frazzled brain and no zip, settling down to a nice Alain Resnais movie, or even a Donald E Westlake thriller, can seem like too much effort. And after a day in the politically-correct and painfully polite environment of the modern workplace, having Jordan Peterson call things ‘despicable’ and ‘ridiculous’ can feel almost refreshing.
Besides, I’m not so sure that we should let an author get away with the claim that a week’s worth of expensive psychobabble is more valuable than a few well-chosen videos from Alux, Jordan Peterson and Jocko Willink. As for social pursuits, I don’t want to count the half-drunk hours I and some mates spent playing Risk or Trivial Pursuit in my twenties or even thirties, and I’m not sure that’s any worse than playing an online multi-player game.
Spare time should not be used for toxic and pointless behaviour, but every minute doesn’t have to be used for self-improvement either.
So like all hack-books, get a couple of things from it, and it's worth it. Take the whole thing seriously and you're being misled. Took. Bamboozled.
Let’s establish just how silly the book is. This is an actual quote:
Or you could be seeking deeper change: attending the Hoffman course, going to Mecca for the Hajj, taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony, or walking the Camino de Santiago.The Hoffman course is a week-long residential course in California or Connecticut. I’ll let you read their blurb. Or you may be able to guess the psychobabble just from those details.
The Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca. You can’t just walk the walk, you have to talk the talk. If you don’t believe you’re not making a pilgrimage, you’re just being a religious tourist. You can’t seek change on your way to Mecca: you have to be a pious Muslim already. The same applies to the Camino de Santiago, which is the pilgrimage across northern Spain to see the relics of St James of Compostella. Again, you can’t seek change on the Camino, you already have to be a practicing Catholic who believes in the power of relics. Or you’re just a sight-seer.
An Ayahuasca Ceremony involves taking a South American herbal hallucinogenic. You can read more here. It’s best done in South America, of course. The view out of a Newcastle tower block isn’t quite as conducive to spiritual reflection, and you probably couldn’t get the right guru to lead you.
So that gives you an idea of the level of depth of thought that has gone into this book.
Wallman’s book is full of hacks - tricks to make you feel better. As with all lists of hacks, some of these may work for you, others for me, and if we get a couple of useful hacks out of a book that costs £10, that’s good value for money. This is one reason these books sell: we know each one will have at least one thing we can use.
STORIES is Wallman's Big Hack.
According to STORIES, when we’re thinking of doing something, he says, we should ask:
Story - is this something I want the guys at the office or the next girlfriend to know I did? Transform - will this help me change in a way I want? Outside and Offline - pretty much self-explanatory Relationships - will it strengthen existing relationships or help me make new ones? Intense - will it be intense and memorable? Extraordinary - in some way? Status - will it connect me to others and be significant?
So, not chilling on the sofa watching Two or Three Things I Know About Her on DVD then.
But, if you’re seventeen, you’re with a bunch of other people from college, it’s your first trip to the Curzon Soho, and your generation has had the good sense to pronounce Nouvelle Vague movies cool, then watching Godard’s classic at a retrospective at the Curzon... that’s a Story.
It’s not so much the activity (aside from Outside and Offline) as the circumstances in which the activity is performed.
The giveaway sign of the inveterate hacker is that they dive straight for detailed, specific problems. There’s no overview, no stock-taking. Spend more time with your friends they say, whereas the correct question is Which of your friends are worth spending time with?
How much spare time do I really have? (Don’t count commuting, meal prep, morning and evening toilet, and all the hours between arriving and leaving work. Also don’t count shopping, washing, and other housework.)
What do I spend that spare time doing now? Which of those activities do I wish I could stop? Which are guilty pleasures? Which leave me feeling empty? Which leave me feeling tired in a bad way? In a good way?
Which of my friends and acquaintances are worth spending time with and why / why not? How can I spend more time with the worthy ones, and let the bad ones slide?
How much exercise am I getting? Is it the right kind? Does it wear me out or build me up?
What have I always wanted to do but haven’t yet done? Which can I afford to do? Which could I do on my next week off from work? Or at the next weekend?
What am I doing that I think I ‘ought’ to be doing, but I don’t really want to, and isn’t really giving me any benefits?
Those kinds of questions.
Walman forgets that everything we do can’t be
(Unless you’re Lee Dorsey)
Sometimes it just has to be not junk. The trick is to find something else to do rather than fall down the black holes of TV, You Tube or whatever else counts as junk for us. At the end of a long day, with a frazzled brain and no zip, settling down to a nice Alain Resnais movie, or even a Donald E Westlake thriller, can seem like too much effort. And after a day in the politically-correct and painfully polite environment of the modern workplace, having Jordan Peterson call things ‘despicable’ and ‘ridiculous’ can feel almost refreshing.
Besides, I’m not so sure that we should let an author get away with the claim that a week’s worth of expensive psychobabble is more valuable than a few well-chosen videos from Alux, Jordan Peterson and Jocko Willink. As for social pursuits, I don’t want to count the half-drunk hours I and some mates spent playing Risk or Trivial Pursuit in my twenties or even thirties, and I’m not sure that’s any worse than playing an online multi-player game.
Spare time should not be used for toxic and pointless behaviour, but every minute doesn’t have to be used for self-improvement either.
So like all hack-books, get a couple of things from it, and it's worth it. Take the whole thing seriously and you're being misled. Took. Bamboozled.
Thursday 12 December 2019
The Load We Have To Move
I read James Wallman’s book on how we can improve the way we use our spare time, and in putting some remarks together, kept going off at a tangent. Wallman’s book is full of life-hacks, some reasonable and some utterly silly, and I don’t like hacks because I’d rather identify and solve the underlying problem. The underlying reasons for why people waste their spare time on junk activities are about the structure of their lives, and that takes us away from simple hacks to some serious reviews and actions that lack best-seller friendliness.
Then I remembered Jordan Peterson’s remark about young men and purpose, from one of his classic videos...
and the line “well, at least I moved that load from here to there”. He meant it as a metaphor, and then I realised what the load really is.
Very few people even come close. I’m bad at finding tradesmen and couldn’t find a new friend if my life depended on it. My Game is weak, and my job-hunting is bad. My diet is skewed towards sugar, and lacks variety. This may be because I’m getting old and my taste buds are going. I was in my mid-forties before I worked for a manager who thought I was good at my job and appreciated it. Only a couple of years before that I did my Step Eight and started to feel some actual self-respect. I spent a lot of the first half of my being pretty much a junk person myself. When I was at my alcoholic worst, I worked for some dodgy but not actually criminal people, and I have worked for a company director who wound up in jail, so maybe I have worked for criminals.
Getting honest work is not difficult, but it’s not easy either. Here’s the (*): nurses, policemen, firemen and teachers are paid from taxes. They are paid not to do what the people they deal with want, but what the Government and the organisation wants to do with the people they deal with. It’s a subtle but crucial difference. Provided that the staff are in tune with the public, that’s not so bad, but when the organisation is looks down on the public, that’s not so acceptable.
That’s the load. Do those things and you won’t be asking about the purpose of your life.
Because that’s what living is.
Then I remembered Jordan Peterson’s remark about young men and purpose, from one of his classic videos...
and the line “well, at least I moved that load from here to there”. He meant it as a metaphor, and then I realised what the load really is.
You are someone who respects themselves, and is lucky enough to have friends and co-workers who are considerate enough to express their thanks for what you do for them. Earn a living working in a company that produces something legal that people want and are not forced by law to pay for (*). Pay your taxes and not whine about it. Work hard, exercise, eat right, not drink too much, and not buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t care about. Stay away from junk culture, junk food, junk activities and junk people. Try all sorts of things until you find food, drink, music, literature, movies, dance, theatre, sports, athletic and outdoor activities, that you like. Learn to cook, buy food, and keep your lodgings clean. Learn how to recognise users, losers and abusers, and keep them out of your life. Learn how to recognise scientific, political, economic, commercial and personal fraud. (It isn’t as hard as you might think.) Learn to follow the money: ask, about anyone who is getting press coverage and telling you how you should behave, where they are getting their money from, who is financing them? Learn how to find tradesmen to do what you can’t, and don’t begrudge paying them a fair price. Learn how to find and make friends - keeping them depends as much on them as on you. Learn how to find jobs and interview well for them, and also to leave politely when it’s obvious the job is a crock.That’s the load.
You are not going to get married or enter into a domestic relationship unless your parents and her parents are still happily married. You are not going to have children until you are married, and unless you can think, right now, of three ways of keeping a four year-old, a ten year-old and a seventeen-year-old from being bored in whatever the weather is right now. (You should remember those from your own childhood.) Learn Game so you are not tongue-tied and awkward when you meet a woman you want to have an affair with, and especially the one you want to have children with, because you're going to need to Game her for the rest of your life.
Very few people even come close. I’m bad at finding tradesmen and couldn’t find a new friend if my life depended on it. My Game is weak, and my job-hunting is bad. My diet is skewed towards sugar, and lacks variety. This may be because I’m getting old and my taste buds are going. I was in my mid-forties before I worked for a manager who thought I was good at my job and appreciated it. Only a couple of years before that I did my Step Eight and started to feel some actual self-respect. I spent a lot of the first half of my being pretty much a junk person myself. When I was at my alcoholic worst, I worked for some dodgy but not actually criminal people, and I have worked for a company director who wound up in jail, so maybe I have worked for criminals.
Getting honest work is not difficult, but it’s not easy either. Here’s the (*): nurses, policemen, firemen and teachers are paid from taxes. They are paid not to do what the people they deal with want, but what the Government and the organisation wants to do with the people they deal with. It’s a subtle but crucial difference. Provided that the staff are in tune with the public, that’s not so bad, but when the organisation is looks down on the public, that’s not so acceptable.
That’s the load. Do those things and you won’t be asking about the purpose of your life.
Because that’s what living is.
Thursday 31 October 2019
What Money Buys
There seem to be as many financial You Tubers are there are dating coaches. All of them are, of course, about not spending money, or, as we Brits would say, not pissing it away. A lot of them are about saving or investing money instead of spending it, and how much better a person you will be if you save or invest instead of spend.
Right. (cracks fingers)
Money buys four different things: necessities; peace of mind; quality of life; options.
Necessities are the the things you need to make the money you need so you can get the things you need to make the money you need. And not be living in your Mom’s basement. And not looking like a homeless person. Rent, council tax, travel to work, raw food that you cook yourself, water, electricity, gas, clothes, shoes, mobile phone. (If you don’t think a mobile phone isn’t a necessity, you are a privileged white person who doesn’t work. If you did zero hours or temp work, you’d know the only way an agency gets in touch is on a mobile.) Soap, shampoo, toothpaste, nail clippers and nail file. Detergent to wash your clothes with. Razor and shaving cream. Towels. Bedsheets, duvet, pillow and pillow cases. Haircuts.
Peace of Mind is what comes when you know you can handle something going wrong. Being the guy who tears his hair out because he doesn’t have the spare cash to handle a minor upset, from a blown tyre, or water on the laptop, or missing the holiday flight home and having to buy the expensive one-way ticket - being the guy whose world falls apart at that kind of stuff is not a good look, and it’s a lousy way to feel. Anything goes wrong, and you flip off the deep end, because you may have to starve for the next week. That’s why you buy contents insurance, even if you don’t own your own place. It’s why you put money into an Oh Shit account. At today’s prices, you will start to feel comfortable with about £2,000 in the Oh Shit account.
Quality of life. This is two things: less shoddiness, inconvenience and effort, and more pleasure, health, education and personal growth. Shoes from Northampton cobblers instead of cheap things that look awful after six months; good noise-cancelling headphones to avoid the pointless sounds of commuting; my weekly minutes in the sunbed; parking at the station now and again; having a car, even though I don’t drive to work; my movie streaming and music streaming subscriptions, DVDs, CDs, books, movies and occasional live shows - entertainment is quality of life. Dental hygienist once every three-four months.
Quality of life is not indulgence. The difference is not in the act itself, but in the purpose and affordability.
One indulgence is acceptable. Mine is the gym. It’s a fancy one. They provide towels. There’s a swimming pool. The soap and shampoo is Cowshed. I rent a locker. Get there early enough in the morning and pick up a free copy of the Financial Times. I could go to a much cheaper one, but it wouldn’t be twenty yards from Piccadilly Circus. I’ll go to a chain warehouse gym when I retire.
Where I differ from the gurus is this: it’s your money, your life. You want to piss it all away and be poor for twenty years after you stop working, please by my guest. I’m not going to stop you, and I’m not going to vote for a Government that wants to bail you out either. You want to be dumb, go ahead. I have no idea how people can spend thousands on gaming laptops and games, but they have no idea how anyone could live a life as boring as mine.
Because, unless you make a pile of cash and keep it, or unless you are in the top five per cent of salary-earners in your economy, the difference between all those spending-saving strategies is in two things: first, the exact degree of genteel poverty you are going to live out the last twenty or so of your post-retirement years; second, the exact degree of insecurity, anxiety and inconvenience in which you live the forty years you’re working.
Right. (cracks fingers)
Money buys four different things: necessities; peace of mind; quality of life; options.
Necessities are the the things you need to make the money you need so you can get the things you need to make the money you need. And not be living in your Mom’s basement. And not looking like a homeless person. Rent, council tax, travel to work, raw food that you cook yourself, water, electricity, gas, clothes, shoes, mobile phone. (If you don’t think a mobile phone isn’t a necessity, you are a privileged white person who doesn’t work. If you did zero hours or temp work, you’d know the only way an agency gets in touch is on a mobile.) Soap, shampoo, toothpaste, nail clippers and nail file. Detergent to wash your clothes with. Razor and shaving cream. Towels. Bedsheets, duvet, pillow and pillow cases. Haircuts.
Peace of Mind is what comes when you know you can handle something going wrong. Being the guy who tears his hair out because he doesn’t have the spare cash to handle a minor upset, from a blown tyre, or water on the laptop, or missing the holiday flight home and having to buy the expensive one-way ticket - being the guy whose world falls apart at that kind of stuff is not a good look, and it’s a lousy way to feel. Anything goes wrong, and you flip off the deep end, because you may have to starve for the next week. That’s why you buy contents insurance, even if you don’t own your own place. It’s why you put money into an Oh Shit account. At today’s prices, you will start to feel comfortable with about £2,000 in the Oh Shit account.
Quality of life. This is two things: less shoddiness, inconvenience and effort, and more pleasure, health, education and personal growth. Shoes from Northampton cobblers instead of cheap things that look awful after six months; good noise-cancelling headphones to avoid the pointless sounds of commuting; my weekly minutes in the sunbed; parking at the station now and again; having a car, even though I don’t drive to work; my movie streaming and music streaming subscriptions, DVDs, CDs, books, movies and occasional live shows - entertainment is quality of life. Dental hygienist once every three-four months.
Quality of life is not indulgence. The difference is not in the act itself, but in the purpose and affordability.
One indulgence is acceptable. Mine is the gym. It’s a fancy one. They provide towels. There’s a swimming pool. The soap and shampoo is Cowshed. I rent a locker. Get there early enough in the morning and pick up a free copy of the Financial Times. I could go to a much cheaper one, but it wouldn’t be twenty yards from Piccadilly Circus. I’ll go to a chain warehouse gym when I retire.
Where I differ from the gurus is this: it’s your money, your life. You want to piss it all away and be poor for twenty years after you stop working, please by my guest. I’m not going to stop you, and I’m not going to vote for a Government that wants to bail you out either. You want to be dumb, go ahead. I have no idea how people can spend thousands on gaming laptops and games, but they have no idea how anyone could live a life as boring as mine.
Because, unless you make a pile of cash and keep it, or unless you are in the top five per cent of salary-earners in your economy, the difference between all those spending-saving strategies is in two things: first, the exact degree of genteel poverty you are going to live out the last twenty or so of your post-retirement years; second, the exact degree of insecurity, anxiety and inconvenience in which you live the forty years you’re working.
Thursday 17 October 2019
Why We’re Helpless When Things That Don’t Go Wrong Finally Go Wrong
There should be a snappy title for the law that states: the longer any given thing in your life works, the less competent you will be at fixing it when it goes wrong.
Contrast:
Ten years ago you found a decent plumber to put in the gas boiler. Then the boiler goes. The plumber isn’t working any more, and you have no idea where to find another one
Vs
Every six months something happens to one of the damn pipes in your house. Like mice can eat copper or something. You have three currently active plumbers in your phone. People you know ask you to recommend plumbers.
It’s also known as the I used to know how to do this, but I haven’t had to for years effect.
Two out three of the last cars I’ve had were from Car Giant: a Ford Ka and the Fiat Punto. In the middle was a Renault Clio that I bought from a dealer in a town in south-west (say Swindon, though I don’t think it was) because I happened to pass it when I was in the town on business. I look for a low-mileage, previous model of a mainstream car: The Ka, a Renault Clio, then the Fiat Punto. The fact that it’s the previous model means it’s a lot cheaper than the latest model, even if only six months older, for the same mileage.
This time round Car Giant failed me. Totally. Utterly. In the nine years since I bought the Punto, they seem to have adopted a policy of only selling the latest model and no older than three years. Minimum price £5,500 (+£150 ‘admin fee’). Main price range £6,500 - £9,500. For a supermini (Corsa, Fiesta). No Puntos. For that kind of money, I want a car I really like, rather can just live with. And I am not a rear spoiler guy (Corsa). Nor do I like an instrument panel that seems to be right in my face (Fiesta). The Fiat 500 is way too small.
So that was Plan A gone.
As I trudged along the alley between Hythe Road and Willesden Junction - which is marked on the map as an un-named thick grey line, and you have not experienced the full range of what London has to offer if you haven’t walked it at least once - I realised I had no Plan B. I had no idea how the heck one buys previous-model, low mileage cars in +TheCurrentYear.
Why would I? The one I had would still be going strong if that guy hadn’t backed into it.
The better your life works, and the longer it works well, the less resources you will have to fix it when stuff starts to break.
Contrast:
Ten years ago you found a decent plumber to put in the gas boiler. Then the boiler goes. The plumber isn’t working any more, and you have no idea where to find another one
Vs
Every six months something happens to one of the damn pipes in your house. Like mice can eat copper or something. You have three currently active plumbers in your phone. People you know ask you to recommend plumbers.
It’s also known as the I used to know how to do this, but I haven’t had to for years effect.
Two out three of the last cars I’ve had were from Car Giant: a Ford Ka and the Fiat Punto. In the middle was a Renault Clio that I bought from a dealer in a town in south-west (say Swindon, though I don’t think it was) because I happened to pass it when I was in the town on business. I look for a low-mileage, previous model of a mainstream car: The Ka, a Renault Clio, then the Fiat Punto. The fact that it’s the previous model means it’s a lot cheaper than the latest model, even if only six months older, for the same mileage.
This time round Car Giant failed me. Totally. Utterly. In the nine years since I bought the Punto, they seem to have adopted a policy of only selling the latest model and no older than three years. Minimum price £5,500 (+£150 ‘admin fee’). Main price range £6,500 - £9,500. For a supermini (Corsa, Fiesta). No Puntos. For that kind of money, I want a car I really like, rather can just live with. And I am not a rear spoiler guy (Corsa). Nor do I like an instrument panel that seems to be right in my face (Fiesta). The Fiat 500 is way too small.
So that was Plan A gone.
As I trudged along the alley between Hythe Road and Willesden Junction - which is marked on the map as an un-named thick grey line, and you have not experienced the full range of what London has to offer if you haven’t walked it at least once - I realised I had no Plan B. I had no idea how the heck one buys previous-model, low mileage cars in +TheCurrentYear.
Why would I? The one I had would still be going strong if that guy hadn’t backed into it.
The better your life works, and the longer it works well, the less resources you will have to fix it when stuff starts to break.
Monday 22 July 2019
Louis Rossmann on Giving Up
Two things: if you’re a nerd then you will really appreciate Louis Rossmann, who seems to be the King of Macbook board repair, and a general all-round self-aware person with a direct style I like. His board repair videos are guaranteed to calm the most troubled soul.
This is him talking about people who can’t solve problems, and how much freaking effort it is to solve problems in real life.
I cannot endorse these sentiments enough. Solving technical problems is difficult, experimental, full of hours of wrong directions followed by a moment of “oh, yes, I do it this way” realisation that solves the problem in five minutes. I let my emotions get involved, in the sense that I give voice to my frustration and puzzlement, and occasionally express the opinion that if I was someone really actually clever, like for instance Terence Tao, I would have solved this as soon as I looked at it. Two things to notice here: first, my idea of clever is Terence Tao, not the guy at the next desk; and second, a long time ago, I realised that the really smart people would never work at the companies I work for, and the people at those companies have no idea who Terence Tao is, let alone any way of appreciating how clever he is, so actually, in their world, I’m as smart as they will see.
I also have one actual virtue. I will not give up if it is a problem I believe to be within my competence and the scope of my tools. So I don’t bother trying to fix my work laptop when it does strange stuff because I don’t have administrator rights on it. I’m not going to tackle a problem that needs a proper programming language to fix, because the part of the business I’m in doesn’t have access to properly installed programming languages. If it’s an SQL problem, I am going to solve it. I just keep going at it: try this, try that, even read the manual.
Many of my colleagues don’t do that. They try once, see an error message and give up, or don’t get the results they thought they should get, and give up. For the longest while I have put that down to a) a lack of moral fibre, b) laziness and freeloading, since they always ask me if I can do it for them, c) tactical incompetence, where you suddenly can’t do something for someone who you suspect is off-loading the task to you because they too lack moral fibre.
Louis’ suggestion is that many of my colleagues are suffering from having a very low bar for feeling like a failure. Having various attempts fail is one thing, but feeling that you have failed, and are therefore a failure, or will feel like one if you carry on producing failing attempts, is another thing altogether. He has a high bar for feeling like a failure. So do I. Many people have a very, very low bar. A couple of tries and they are done.
It may be some kind of psychological factory setting, or it may be actual lack of moral fibre, either way when someone does the “I can’t do it, can you do it for me because deadlines”, while I continue to respect them as a human being and fellow traveller through this joyous pageant of Life, I can’t entirely take them seriously again. They aren’t One of Us, the Honourable Guild of Problem Solvers.
I feel pretty sure that Louis would think I was being unkind. And he may be right.
This is him talking about people who can’t solve problems, and how much freaking effort it is to solve problems in real life.
I cannot endorse these sentiments enough. Solving technical problems is difficult, experimental, full of hours of wrong directions followed by a moment of “oh, yes, I do it this way” realisation that solves the problem in five minutes. I let my emotions get involved, in the sense that I give voice to my frustration and puzzlement, and occasionally express the opinion that if I was someone really actually clever, like for instance Terence Tao, I would have solved this as soon as I looked at it. Two things to notice here: first, my idea of clever is Terence Tao, not the guy at the next desk; and second, a long time ago, I realised that the really smart people would never work at the companies I work for, and the people at those companies have no idea who Terence Tao is, let alone any way of appreciating how clever he is, so actually, in their world, I’m as smart as they will see.
I also have one actual virtue. I will not give up if it is a problem I believe to be within my competence and the scope of my tools. So I don’t bother trying to fix my work laptop when it does strange stuff because I don’t have administrator rights on it. I’m not going to tackle a problem that needs a proper programming language to fix, because the part of the business I’m in doesn’t have access to properly installed programming languages. If it’s an SQL problem, I am going to solve it. I just keep going at it: try this, try that, even read the manual.
Many of my colleagues don’t do that. They try once, see an error message and give up, or don’t get the results they thought they should get, and give up. For the longest while I have put that down to a) a lack of moral fibre, b) laziness and freeloading, since they always ask me if I can do it for them, c) tactical incompetence, where you suddenly can’t do something for someone who you suspect is off-loading the task to you because they too lack moral fibre.
Louis’ suggestion is that many of my colleagues are suffering from having a very low bar for feeling like a failure. Having various attempts fail is one thing, but feeling that you have failed, and are therefore a failure, or will feel like one if you carry on producing failing attempts, is another thing altogether. He has a high bar for feeling like a failure. So do I. Many people have a very, very low bar. A couple of tries and they are done.
It may be some kind of psychological factory setting, or it may be actual lack of moral fibre, either way when someone does the “I can’t do it, can you do it for me because deadlines”, while I continue to respect them as a human being and fellow traveller through this joyous pageant of Life, I can’t entirely take them seriously again. They aren’t One of Us, the Honourable Guild of Problem Solvers.
I feel pretty sure that Louis would think I was being unkind. And he may be right.
Thursday 18 July 2019
Un-burning - Part One
Burn-out is usually defined as a Capitalist malady: it’s the inability to be happily productive, because you can’t handle the stress of your under-resourced job in your dysfunctional workplace. Since The Organisation is not going to change, you must.
Yeah, well, screw that. The Mayo Clinic suggests:
Yoga, meditation and tai chi are not support mechanisms for improved post-modern Capitalist productivity. Anyone doing any of those seriously would become more aware of, and less inclined to accept, the BS that is making them feel burned-out.
Exercise. Sure. I do that already. One’s motivation to hit the gym tends to slacken when one is feeling stressed.
Sleep. I do that just fine. Telling someone who is stressed-out to sleep more is like telling someone who is living near a main road to enjoy silence.
And anyone who suggests or sells “mindfulness” is not your friend. “Mindful” in English means “Watch what you are saying and doing, you are not among friends”. Seriously. That’s what it means. “Mindfulness” is sold as a "spiritual practice”, but it is in fact a warning to self-censor your reactions and feelings - which is what "facing situations with openness and patience, and without judgment” means.
So that was useful.
What does a practical man of action do?
We admitted we were burned out, that our lives had become unmanageable. (Where have I heard that before?)
I had two thirty-minute Thai massages a week for a couple of weeks. The ones where she holds on to the bar on the ceiling to balance and walks on me.
I got back into the gym: Saturday and Sunday mornings, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. At this stage, simply showing up and hefting any amount of iron will do.
I have one Americano in the morning, with breakfast, and espresso after that. No tea, unless it’s the afternoon and I’m at home. Something about hot water and milk wasn’t helping.
I’m parking the car at the station in the morning. At twenty-five past six there are spaces. Pay by the Ringo App. It’s half the price of parking at Richmond. I feel so much more relaxed at both ends of the day. I kinda knew I resented that walk from the station to where I’ve been parking the car, but I didn’t know how much I resented it.
Yep. It’s pollen time again. Back comes the Beconase. When my eyes start itching, I take a couple of snorts.
I’m easing back my negative self-talk. No more “what’s wrong with me / I’m too old for this / I can’t keep this pace up” and the like. This is the first thing that Mike Cernovich talks about in Gorilla Mindset. I thought I had that one down when I read it.
“Be nice to yourself” I say every now and then.
Since the Doddle at Liverpool Street closed, I haven’t had anywhere convenient to get Amazon deliveries. Then I noticed my local Homebase has an Amazon locker. I experimented with a delivery: the locker broke down for a day, but Amazon sent me a mail when it started working, and I collected the book I’d ordered. I will be using that again. A lack of Amazon delivery turned out to be a little thing that itched.
At work, I recognised that SQL-cutting is monotonous and requires focus. So I’m slowing down a little. I’m taking the pressure off me to cut fast and cut once, because that always works well. I should have learned by now, but, hey, nobody’s perfect.
I move around the office a bit, so I’m not sitting at the same place all day.
I make sure I do something for me during working hours. I’m not the only one at work who gets to the end of the day and realises they haven’t done X, where X is “collect the dry cleaning” or “make a reservation” or “collect the prescription”.
Yeah, well, screw that. The Mayo Clinic suggests:
Discuss specific concerns with your supervisor. Maybe you can work together to change expectations or reach compromises or solutions. Try to set goals for what must get done and what can wait.If you could do the first two of those, the chances are you would not be feeling burned out. One reason burnout happens is exactly because we can’t trust or find support from our “colleagues”.
Seek support. Whether you reach out to co-workers, friends or loved ones, support and collaboration might help you cope. If you have access to an employee assistance program, take advantage of relevant services.
Try a relaxing activity. Explore programs that can help with stress such as yoga, meditation or tai chi.
Get some exercise. Regular physical activity can help you to better deal with stress. It can also take your mind off work.
Get some sleep. Sleep restores well-being and helps protect your health.
Mindfulness. Mindfulness is the act of focusing on your breath flow and being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling at every moment, without interpretation or judgment. In a job setting, this practice involves facing situations with openness and patience, and without judgment.
Yoga, meditation and tai chi are not support mechanisms for improved post-modern Capitalist productivity. Anyone doing any of those seriously would become more aware of, and less inclined to accept, the BS that is making them feel burned-out.
Exercise. Sure. I do that already. One’s motivation to hit the gym tends to slacken when one is feeling stressed.
Sleep. I do that just fine. Telling someone who is stressed-out to sleep more is like telling someone who is living near a main road to enjoy silence.
And anyone who suggests or sells “mindfulness” is not your friend. “Mindful” in English means “Watch what you are saying and doing, you are not among friends”. Seriously. That’s what it means. “Mindfulness” is sold as a "spiritual practice”, but it is in fact a warning to self-censor your reactions and feelings - which is what "facing situations with openness and patience, and without judgment” means.
So that was useful.
What does a practical man of action do?
We admitted we were burned out, that our lives had become unmanageable. (Where have I heard that before?)
I had two thirty-minute Thai massages a week for a couple of weeks. The ones where she holds on to the bar on the ceiling to balance and walks on me.
I got back into the gym: Saturday and Sunday mornings, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. At this stage, simply showing up and hefting any amount of iron will do.
I have one Americano in the morning, with breakfast, and espresso after that. No tea, unless it’s the afternoon and I’m at home. Something about hot water and milk wasn’t helping.
I’m parking the car at the station in the morning. At twenty-five past six there are spaces. Pay by the Ringo App. It’s half the price of parking at Richmond. I feel so much more relaxed at both ends of the day. I kinda knew I resented that walk from the station to where I’ve been parking the car, but I didn’t know how much I resented it.
Yep. It’s pollen time again. Back comes the Beconase. When my eyes start itching, I take a couple of snorts.
I’m easing back my negative self-talk. No more “what’s wrong with me / I’m too old for this / I can’t keep this pace up” and the like. This is the first thing that Mike Cernovich talks about in Gorilla Mindset. I thought I had that one down when I read it.
“Be nice to yourself” I say every now and then.
Since the Doddle at Liverpool Street closed, I haven’t had anywhere convenient to get Amazon deliveries. Then I noticed my local Homebase has an Amazon locker. I experimented with a delivery: the locker broke down for a day, but Amazon sent me a mail when it started working, and I collected the book I’d ordered. I will be using that again. A lack of Amazon delivery turned out to be a little thing that itched.
At work, I recognised that SQL-cutting is monotonous and requires focus. So I’m slowing down a little. I’m taking the pressure off me to cut fast and cut once, because that always works well. I should have learned by now, but, hey, nobody’s perfect.
I move around the office a bit, so I’m not sitting at the same place all day.
I make sure I do something for me during working hours. I’m not the only one at work who gets to the end of the day and realises they haven’t done X, where X is “collect the dry cleaning” or “make a reservation” or “collect the prescription”.
Monday 13 May 2019
Do It, Don't Say It, and Other Ways of Not Hurting Delicate Feelings
Hot Guy is doing the rounds of the girls at a party. He spends some time talking to Wendy, an attractive woman with bright blue eyes. At some point she says something about childcare, and Hot Guy asks dead casual about the husband, who, Wendy says is no longer around’. Hot Guy nods in what looks like sympathy, and about three minutes later tells Wendy it’s been a pleasure meeting her, and moves on. Never talks to Wendy again. Next up is Wanda, another attractive woman with braids and a funky vibe. She mentions a club she goes to, which Hot Guy knows is a favourite of guys called Tyrone, and he nods and says he’s heard it’s a cool place, and she smiles and says she knows so many of the regulars there, and about three minutes later he tells Wanda it’s been a pleasure meeting her, and moves on. Never talks to Wanda again. There was an overweight girl with a deep chuckle there, but Hot Guy didn’t even look in her direction, same way he passed by the unemployed woman, and nixed his approach to the Princess when he overheard she worked in Publishing, and would therefore be chronically underpaid.
Now read this guy who says: no single moms, no mudsharks and no lazy bums. Outraged? Think he’s a douche? (Edit: you can’t. Heartiste was de-platformed by WordPress on the 11/5/2019.)
Which is odd, because he’s Hot Guy. And you weren’t outraged by Hot Guy’s behaviour.
To channel Dick Cheney: there are things you can do and say; things you can say but can’t do; things you can do but can’t say; and things you can’t say and can’t do. Some of those lists come from social conventions, and the rest each of us makes up according to our precise degree of snowflake.
Red Flags can be acted on but not talked about.
Why? Because Red Flags are used to filter out. Filtering out is discrimination. People with Red Flags say so.
We are supposed to select in. As if you can hire the skill but not the character. The hand but not the worker.
Absence of Red Flags is one of the things we look for in anyone. Unless we are being very unscrupulous.
Why do we screen out Red Flags? Red flags indicate poor judgement and bad decisions. The consequences of poor judgement and bad decisions are permanent, irreversible and mark our lives forever. I have lived that life and I approve this message. The consequences of good decisions vanish in our sleep. Good decisions have to be made over and over and over. Bad decisions only have to be made once.
Red Flag people need some solid shaming on their side. Selecting-in is meritocracy, selecting-out is prejudice. You should focus on the Good In People. Everyone Makes Mistakes. Look, people deserve a second chance. Not douche-bags, or creeps, or Invisible Guys, or that bitch (insert name of Worst Enemy Forever here), or Hitler, or Trump or…. but you know, people. Meaning, as always, the speaker. After all Good People can do Bad Things, and Nobody’s Perfect, and like, gimme a break, I was nineteen, okay? You’re so judgemental.
Yep. Unlike Douchebag Guy, I don’t get judgemental out loud. I do what all sensible people do. Do it, don’t say it. It’s better mannered, but it’s just as exclusionary.
Red Flag people don’t need to hear they made a bad decision. They live with it every day. They expend huge amounts of energy rationalising it every day.
Like you don’t? they may retort.
Hey, Nobody’s Perfect, and like, gimme a break, I was fifty-five, okay? You’re so judgemental.
Now read this guy who says: no single moms, no mudsharks and no lazy bums. Outraged? Think he’s a douche? (Edit: you can’t. Heartiste was de-platformed by WordPress on the 11/5/2019.)
Which is odd, because he’s Hot Guy. And you weren’t outraged by Hot Guy’s behaviour.
To channel Dick Cheney: there are things you can do and say; things you can say but can’t do; things you can do but can’t say; and things you can’t say and can’t do. Some of those lists come from social conventions, and the rest each of us makes up according to our precise degree of snowflake.
Red Flags can be acted on but not talked about.
Why? Because Red Flags are used to filter out. Filtering out is discrimination. People with Red Flags say so.
We are supposed to select in. As if you can hire the skill but not the character. The hand but not the worker.
Absence of Red Flags is one of the things we look for in anyone. Unless we are being very unscrupulous.
Why do we screen out Red Flags? Red flags indicate poor judgement and bad decisions. The consequences of poor judgement and bad decisions are permanent, irreversible and mark our lives forever. I have lived that life and I approve this message. The consequences of good decisions vanish in our sleep. Good decisions have to be made over and over and over. Bad decisions only have to be made once.
Red Flag people need some solid shaming on their side. Selecting-in is meritocracy, selecting-out is prejudice. You should focus on the Good In People. Everyone Makes Mistakes. Look, people deserve a second chance. Not douche-bags, or creeps, or Invisible Guys, or that bitch (insert name of Worst Enemy Forever here), or Hitler, or Trump or…. but you know, people. Meaning, as always, the speaker. After all Good People can do Bad Things, and Nobody’s Perfect, and like, gimme a break, I was nineteen, okay? You’re so judgemental.
Yep. Unlike Douchebag Guy, I don’t get judgemental out loud. I do what all sensible people do. Do it, don’t say it. It’s better mannered, but it’s just as exclusionary.
Red Flag people don’t need to hear they made a bad decision. They live with it every day. They expend huge amounts of energy rationalising it every day.
Like you don’t? they may retort.
Hey, Nobody’s Perfect, and like, gimme a break, I was fifty-five, okay? You’re so judgemental.
Monday 8 April 2019
Recovery Is A Means To Sobriety, Not Fun
When I first got sober, the task itself was a challenge and a source of excitement and discovery. After a good few years, when I had regular employment and some degree of emotional sobriety, the thrill of physical sobriety was gone. I have to remember that it’s something I do every day, and can lose any day. That’s why I still go to meetings.
The same has happened with the self-development stuff. Early nights needed for the early mornings prevent the parties and even the opera and the theatre; the careful diet discourages blow-outs and gimmick food; sobriety cuts out booze and drugs, and that has serious consequences for anyone’s sex life, let alone mine. Life has turned into a stream of comforting and bland white-food experiences.
At which point, you said all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Which is one of those things people say without really understanding it.
What is work? One answer is that it’s something we would only do if we were being paid to do it. I like that one, but that misses the essential bit. Work is anything we do that is goal-directed, rather than for the fun of the thing itself. Employment is work, because the aim is to get paid by doing whatever the boss need me to do. Shopping for food is work. The gym is work, and so is making the bed, ironing the sheets, reading a non-fiction book, tidying a room, cleaning the car, making a painting, taking photographs, networking in the pub after work, chasing girls… a lot more things are goal-directed than you might believe. Sleeping is goal-directed activity, and so work, which is why I wake up exhausted every morning.
Being dull is about being poor company, withdrawn, shy, not being funny, amusing, pleasant, not knowing how to take part in the chatter, the teasing, and the all-round bonhomie. It’s about Jack not being fun for other people rather than having fun for himself.
Being a dull boy may not be such a bad thing, if the only company you have to keep is forever getting into fights, debt, unplanned pregnancies, and going in and out of jail, or if the people you know are gossipy, back-biting, empty-headed, and don’t do much more than eat, drink, shop and get high.
What is it about work that makes Jack a dull boy? Trick question: it only makes Jack dull if it’s that kind of work. Drudgery for someone else’s benefit.
A lot of the self-improvement stuff can be habit, but habit does not mean drudgery, and it is all for oneself.
The trick is to remember that there was a time I didn’t do it, and how I felt then. I could consider that I could stop, and what the consequences of doing that would be. And sometimes, instead of saying “this is just this again”, to say “this is what I do”.
The same has happened with the self-development stuff. Early nights needed for the early mornings prevent the parties and even the opera and the theatre; the careful diet discourages blow-outs and gimmick food; sobriety cuts out booze and drugs, and that has serious consequences for anyone’s sex life, let alone mine. Life has turned into a stream of comforting and bland white-food experiences.
At which point, you said all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Which is one of those things people say without really understanding it.
What is work? One answer is that it’s something we would only do if we were being paid to do it. I like that one, but that misses the essential bit. Work is anything we do that is goal-directed, rather than for the fun of the thing itself. Employment is work, because the aim is to get paid by doing whatever the boss need me to do. Shopping for food is work. The gym is work, and so is making the bed, ironing the sheets, reading a non-fiction book, tidying a room, cleaning the car, making a painting, taking photographs, networking in the pub after work, chasing girls… a lot more things are goal-directed than you might believe. Sleeping is goal-directed activity, and so work, which is why I wake up exhausted every morning.
Being dull is about being poor company, withdrawn, shy, not being funny, amusing, pleasant, not knowing how to take part in the chatter, the teasing, and the all-round bonhomie. It’s about Jack not being fun for other people rather than having fun for himself.
Being a dull boy may not be such a bad thing, if the only company you have to keep is forever getting into fights, debt, unplanned pregnancies, and going in and out of jail, or if the people you know are gossipy, back-biting, empty-headed, and don’t do much more than eat, drink, shop and get high.
What is it about work that makes Jack a dull boy? Trick question: it only makes Jack dull if it’s that kind of work. Drudgery for someone else’s benefit.
A lot of the self-improvement stuff can be habit, but habit does not mean drudgery, and it is all for oneself.
The trick is to remember that there was a time I didn’t do it, and how I felt then. I could consider that I could stop, and what the consequences of doing that would be. And sometimes, instead of saying “this is just this again”, to say “this is what I do”.
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