Pressuring and Persuasion

Part 2: Not pressuring and persuading

We all want things. In many cases, other people do not want the things we want. So we want them to want what we want.

You might have noticed that in my last entry, I posted an ellipsis.

While it may have seemed that I was simply slacking off, it really wasn't[1]. It actually was the first lesson in persuading people.

I am an enthusiastic person, and often over-eager when it comes to introducing friends to books, foods, philosophy and the like. However, I've learned that if I take a moment to pause, I can gauge my friends' interest in the conversation. Do they lean forward? Do they question and comment? Or do they move on to a different topic? That evaluation informs me of my audience's state, and allows the curious mind to anticipate rather than react, which is a key to learning well.

So last week was a chance for people to respond, to either inquire about my promised post or to breath a sigh of relief. And the verdict was: Sufficient Interest.

And so we continue with our question: how to persuade others. How do we get them to want what we want? Let's start with a more passive method in this post, and go proactive in the next.

Personal choice is powerful: Give them a chance to come to you.

This is counter-intuitive, but sometimes you can let them do the hardest part of persuading themselves. You can let them open up. When done correctly, this means merely pointing out an open door, another way of thinking or living, and letting their own curiosity bring them through[2]. Closed minds are impenetrable to any attack, and the fiercer the assault, the stronger the resistance. To open up a person to an idea, you might mention things that appeal to their curiosity, their desire for knowledge, novelty, fun, or any other motivator, and let it work[3]. Only they can open their minds. There's a reason Christ only explained his parables to those who came to him afterward asking about them. Invite all, carry on with the few who are willing.

Strange as it may seem, this oft-ignored tool, when it works, is incredibly effective.

The reason it is oft-ignored is because it's inconvenient. It's not fast, it's not sure, and it's not under your control.  Which is another phrase for "excruciatingly frustrating".  I've found it most useful in the very short term and the very long term.  Short term because I can round up the initially interested without putting people on the defensive or scaring anyone off. Long term because it takes very little effort to quietly leave a door open, and you never know when some curious soul will step through. The real challenge is to set up everything just right, like a well-set fire pit, so when you see the slightest spark of interest, you have a place to catch and fuel it into a full-fledged bonfire. Despite its inconvenience, this can be a very powerful method of persuasion.

How powerful?

Hard to gauge objectively, but when I reflect, most of my real passions and hobbies are things that I came upon myself, or at most, was introduced to. Rarely have things which were explicitly foisted on me set down deep roots.

Remember, Your job is not to make them do X. It's to make them want to do X.

Cats are fickle creatures, but Curious

A useful analogy might be cats. Storm through your house yelling for your cat, the feline will dash into its nearest bolt-bole.  It doesn't matter if you're waving a steak or a new toy, that cat is gone. If however, you call its name once, lay out the toy in an open place where it is sure to walk by, sooner or later your curious cat will saunter up in it's own good time and begin to investigate on its own[4]. 

So maybe you should back off. Give them some time to investigate in their own.

But if they don't, Part 3 is coming up!

[1] The first time I missed, at least. The second was totally me being behind on writing.

[2] With you as a helpful tour guide, of course.

[4] Think Tom Sawyer and the fence-style.

[4]And if it doesn't, there's literally nothing you can do. I mean, it's a cat. There are alternative methods for humans, but cats... man.

[5] I found today's post quite a bit vaguer and fluffier than I'd like. But not so much that I'd go a week without posting something. 

Finally!

Yes, Finally I'm posting again. I'd thought for past weeks about posting about the WV water crisis, or the dismantling of net neutrality and the oligopolizing of ISP's in the U.S. or a myriad of other depressing subjects that have been on my mind of late.

Instead, how about some strange, pointless, statistics about our family members?

Don't worry, it's nothing the NSA doesn't already have on you. It's not even embarrassing!

So, Goodreads. Yes goodreads statistics. We are a family of readers. What does the way we rate books say about us? Is there someone who is much more optimistic or pessimistic about what they read than others? Do we all have a tendency towards book grade inflation because we like books so much? Is there anything in the random statistics that pops out and tells a story about one or all of us? The data is public. Let's find out!

Dad--No Picture--Username John Glass 834 books listed 826, ratings (3.23 avg)-19 reviews -- 34 friends
Joseph--Picture in a tree-Username Joseph Glass Read 147 listed, 64 ratings (4.22 avg)-- 4 reviews - 56 friends
Ruth--No Pic--Username Ruth Glass 368 books listed read, 63 ratings (3.38 avg)--0 reviews -- 23 friends
Andrew--No Pic--Username Andrew Glass 79 books listed read, 79 ratings (4.20 avg)--0 reviews -- 4 friends
Adrianna--No Pic--Username Adrianna Fowler 146 books listed, 145 ratings (3.97 avg)--0 reviews--6 friends
Richard-- No account?
Johnny--No Pic--Username Ohjnny Bologna--0 books, 0 ratings (0.0 avg)--0 reviews--0friends Signed up, but didn't use site.
Megan--has a Goodreads account but that's all I know.

So...on a 5 pt scale--average would be 2.5 all of us who rated books were higher than this for our average ratings. Book raters--optimistic to pessimistic: Joseph 4.22, Andrew 4.20, Adri 3.97, Ruth 3.38, Dad 3.23 No major surprises there

Books listed Greatest to least: Dad, Ruth, Joseph, Adri, Andrew. Surprises? Maybe, but listed doesn't = all books read.

Other stuff: Joseph is the only one with a picture. Why would that be? Andrew rated every book he read and doesn't appear to post books unless he's finished with them. Ruth is more likely not to rate a book that she has read than to rate it. Only Dad and Joseph review books on the site. Johnny is the only one that doesn't use his real name as a user name.

So what does all this mean? I have no idea. Any thoughts? Data on each of us is copious and easy to glean in the world we live in. It's figuring out useful and ethical things to do with it that is the catch.

Oh and Ruth. Even though Sherlock is WAY better, I'm still watching Elementary. What's up with that? :)

Game Night

Tonight I will not have quite as long a post as usual since we had a Game Night! Olivia, Christine, Ruth and I played Apples to Apples, which was a ton of fun. Also, they learned they could win nearly any category with me by putting down an animal.

Next week I will definitely do a longer post.

P.S. I am also hopefully going to clean out the office before next Tuesday.

The ends and means of literary interpretation

I have recently started following the Chicago public library's blog. It's pretty great. They have a lot of really interesting posts (not to mention pictures of adorable kids getting their first library cards), but one in particular sparked the topic for my post today.

So, if you followed that link you should have discovered a list of books that, in the author's opinion, lots of people lie about having read (other lists drawn from actual surveys here, here, and here). For the purpose of this post, we will not argue whether this list is a valid representation of the literary lies of the general public. The part I found most interesting was the description of the second book from the bottom.

The author of the article claims that The Prince by Machiavelli is completely misunderstood and usually taken out of context. After a half-an-hour link chain, I would have to agree. Honestly, I feel a little silly for not knowing this before (thank you, eighth grade World History class....). The basic argument is that the The Prince is a satirical work (or at the very least can't be taken at face value). Beginning in the 1700s (and continuing more recently), several authors have claimed that Machiavelli was promoting a republic, exposing the political tactics of the ruling class to the common people, or even possibly laying an elaborate advice-that-will-get-you-killed style trap for the Medicis.

Now, you may ask: Is this like that one time my English Professor tried to claim that Faulkner meant every single noun in "The Bear" to be taken as a different Symbol, even though you're pretty sure he was just drunk most of the time he was writing it? Is this your basic confirmation bias reading-what-you-want-to situation? I dunno. To be fair, your English professor is certainly not Rousseau or Diderot, but it is true that the intentions of dead authors in their centuries old writings are a tad difficult to substantiate. Barring the presence of an actual statement of intent, it's mostly circumstantial speculation. So is it satirical, or serious, or both, or neither? Well, I suppose you'd have to read it yourself to see. (I started, but quickly realized I would have to read a lot more than it's mere eighty pages to have a fair enough understanding of the context alone. So I gave up. [I myself am quite upfront about the fact that I have not read the treatise]).

So why am I writing about this? Mostly because I found it interesting. Also because I thought you all might find it interesting (though apparently Dad and Andrew already knew all about it. Maybe I am the only one who found this surprising?) Specifically, I find the question of interpretation interesting. Who has the right to interpret a work? To what extent is an author responsible for how a work is interpreted? Is there a point in satire that no one understands as such? Functionally speaking, if it takes two hundred years for someone to realize what you meant, you either have really long term goals or you seriously need a new editor. Am I right?

Just random questions rolling around in my head. Personally, I prefer the theory that it was all a carefully laid pit of death for his arch-nemesis Lorenzo Medici. Machiavelli did dedicate the treatise to him after all.....

Favorite Vertebrates

Hello everyone! Sorry if this is super long, you can skip the intro straight to the list if you want.

Now, I could buck the trend of my last several posts and not talk about animals/biology, but I don't feel like it. Also, animals and life are fun and interesting.

So stewing in my mind the last several weeks was the idea for a blog post on my favorite animals from each class of the kingdom Animalia. This came about because of thinking about how people use the word "animal" in non-inclusive ways. Some people think they can be vegetarians and still have fish (and some don't even mean piscitarian, oddly enough- they have that assumption that fish don't count because they've got bug eyes and aren't cuddly). One book, when speaking about list about the coolest animals appearing in scripture, said that bees technically weren't animals, but they'd count them. And my first thought was yes they should count them, not because they're cool (which they are) but because they actually are animals. Incorrect definitions of the categorical term "animal" are used all the time: insects aren't included, birds aren't included, humans aren't included. If only there was a way that we could have a word that was what they meant when they said animal. And there are those words, but they're not common knowledge and come from the science of biological classification. Therapods, for instance refer to birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, leaving out fish, worms, sponges, insects, etc. etc. etc.

Although complicated, classification can be fun if you're into it. And so I had this idea to combat this misappropriation of the word animal (which I don't know why I'm doing it on this site, and know all of you don't use it in inappropriate ways), I was going to make a list with my favorite animals from each class. I chose the class level because, between birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, and mammals, I couldn't make up my mind as to my favorite vertebrate (the phylum containing those classes). I thought it would be a hard, but manageable, task.

Unfortunately I was right about the first part, but the later adjective may be incorrect.

See, Animalia contains thirty-six phylums (at the moment). However, Animalia contains 111 extant classes currently, and that's not including extinct classes (you can see them here). Only seven contain what are traditionally thought of as animals (fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals).

Because of this, this post will ironically include my favorite animals from each class of Vertebrata. Maybe later I'll move through the other thirty-five phylums.

Agnatha (jawless fish)
For agnatha, I had to choose between the lamprey and the hagfish, and I believe the hagfish takes the cake. I am choosing the type specimen for the group, the Atlantic lamprey, not only because it's from the closer ocean but also because its scientific name, Myxine glutinosa, comes from its slime. Slime is produced from its body as a defense mechanism, thought to cover the gills of predatory fish, making them unable to breathe, and thus hagfish have few predators. They also will tie themselves in overhand knot to scrape the slime off, and can produce several liters of slime at a time from their body, which is much smaller than several liters. In terms of eating, since they have no jaws, they feast on carcasses and enter soft tissues and holes like the mouth, eyes, and anus. They are also known to do this to sick or injured fish, basically entering a wound and eating the dying fish from the inside out. Gross, but kinda cool.

Chondrichthyes (sharks, rays, skates, and ghost sharks)
Now, there are a lot of contenders for this one. However, based both on its cool appearance, interesting life history, and status as a "living fossil" (meaning they must be doing something right,), the frill shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) comes out victorious. Just look at the picture and see if you don't instantly love it. They are described as sharks that look like eels. They have roughly 300 hundred teeth, which grow in terrifying rows. They are also viviparous, meaning their young are hatched from their eggs before they are born from their mother. Though they subsist mainly on yolk, the mothers give their young nutrients through some other as yet unknown means.The mothers also have the longest gestation period of any known animal, three and a half years. They have not been known to ever hurt anyone, asides from scientists accidentally cutting themselves while examining their teeth.

Osteichthyes (bony fish)
Also considered a "living fossil," my favorite bony fish happens to be the coelacanth (specifically the West Indian coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae). Its status as a living fossil is currently contested, as recent studies have shown the diversity of the two species is greater than previously believed and that previous studies showing low diversity were biased. The two species comprise the most endangered order of animals, as the West Indian coelacanth is critically endangered and the Indonesian coelacanth is threatened. Coelecanths have no commercial value, as they taste terrible, except for as museum specimens (a demand which has made other species go extinct in the past). They also are lobe-finned fish (fish with a bit of an "arm" to their fin), and retain their notochord, which most vertebrates lose during embryonic development. Their braincase is also only 1.5% tissue, the remaining 98.5% being fat.

Amphibia (amphibians)

The eastern newt, Notophthalmus viridescens, is my favorite amphibian, not the least because of its dramatic changes throughout its life. It begins as a larva with gills which cannot leave the water. Then it becomes an adolescent, known as the red eft, which is bright red/orange, with black spots and orange spots bordered with black. During this stage it lives on land and has dry skin, which is uncharacteristic of amphibians in general. These efts travel far, to other bodies of water to keep high genetic diversity among populations, and they are also very bold. When it becomes an adult it becomes a dull green-brown, grows a wider tail, and becomes almost completely aquatic, with wet skin once again. It does, however, retain the orange spots. These newt also can home (move to an original location through unfamiliar areas) using magnetic orientation.

Red Eft

Adult

Reptilia (reptiles)

Of the reptiles, I find the marine iguana, Amblyrhynchus cristatus, to be one of the most interesting. Ordinarily reptiles are not found in ocean waters, asides from sea turtles and sea serpents. Unlike sea turtles and sea serpents, which are almost completely aquatic, the marine iguana is still terrestrial. The live on the Galapagos Islands, where they have no natural predators, and spend a lot of their time basking on the beach. The marine part of their lifestyle comes when they want to eat. They graze on seaweed along the coast of the islands, and the end of their snouts have even become flatter to better accommodate grabbing the plants. They can dive up to 30 ft (9 m) to reach the seaweed, and they have to bask after a dive to return their body heat to normal. During an El Nino cycle, when the amount of seaweed decreases, the iguanas actually decrease in length by up to 20%, as small iguanas will heat up faster in the sun and thus are able to do more dives for food. It is not known how exactly they decrease their length by such a large amount. They actually are related to the Galapagos land iguana, and form fertile hybrids occasionally at the edges of the beach.

Aves (birds)

There are many birds I like, and it is hard to choose just one to love. But since it's simply my favorite, and not my one-and-only-favorite, it was pretty easy. Most of you probably already know this, but I like talking about it. The secretary bird, Sagittarius serpentarius. This bird looks like an eagle crossed with a small crane, which results in an epic looking bird. Their name comes from the Arabic saqr-et-tair, which means hunter-bird, and not because the black crest feathers look like pencils behind the ear of a secretary, as most people think. They're the only bird in their genus and family, and feed primarily on snakes, as well as other small reptiles, mammals, insects, and  birds. They chase their prey on foot and then beat them with their feet or beak before tearing into their  flesh.

Mammalia (mammals)

I could say people in this category, but I feel that would be based too much on intrinsic biases (also, there are so many other cool animals to choose from). So I'm going to choose naked mole rats, Heterocephalus glaber (even if people were in the running I would still choose naked mole rats). Even though they're not cute, even though they're about as far away you can get from cute without being a rotting corpse, they're cute in the ugly way. If you want a cuter name than naked mole rat, you can call them the sand puppy. Anyway, they live underground in a hive and have a highly hierarchical society. Dominated by a queen, the females are all larger than the males, and so the males are at the bottom rung of the social ladder. The queen is the largest, and regularly goes around the tunnels intimidating the subjects and releasing pheromones to keep them subordinate. When the old queen dies, the strongest females fight to the death to become the new queen. The winner's spine will spread out (increasing the space between vertebrae), making the back weaker but the female larger. They also do not get cancer and don't age as fast as other mammals, likely due to the production of the super-sugar Hyaluronan that causes their skin to be loose. Interesting, huh?

...

Some Limited Notes on Plant Cognition

So today I'm going to ramble on a bit about some of the possibilities of plant cognition- if you could call it that, as plants do not have brains. The fact that plants cannot think or do not have consciousness is widely believed, but in fact that is hard to prove because the lack of widely accepted operational definitions of thought/consciousness. What exactly are they? Are they processes that can only exist in a brain? Only in a human brain?

Unfortunately, that is how it seems to be defined presently. Most of the scientific studies being done on consciousness involve the respondent giving verbal answers to indicate their experience with stimulus, which is not the most rigorous data collection  method. In addition, only people can provide verbal answers, and so skews the proof of consciousness to humans alone. Some methods have used EEG and fMRIs for studies, but again, without a widely accepted operational of consciousness, it is difficult to find evidence of consciousness. This is especially difficult when talking about plants, because the measures of consciousness/cognition currently used require a brain or some verbal capacity, and plants have neither.

However, plants do exhibit some behaviors we find associated with cognition, despite not having a brain. One example is dubbed the "wood wide web." Plants nearby each other will oftentimes connect at the roots, allowing them to exchange nutrients and information. Scientists have found that during winter months evergreens will provide nutrients to deciduous trees. This is not just pro bonum, though, as the debt is repaid during the summer months when the deciduous trees tend to block light from the evergreens. Fungi, though not plants, also exhibit similar behavior, and there are studies showing that they have a level of self-recognition, which is often a prerequisite for consciousness (hence the mirror test used on animals- but that won't work on plants because of the lack of eyes, and there are some issues with the validity of the mirror test). The exchanging of information and settling of scores, while not prove of cognition, certainly seem to point in that general direction.

In addition, some plants have memory, something also indicative, though not proof, of thought. Mimosa pudica plants close their leaves when disturbed as a defense mechanism. Researchers found that when they dropped the plants from a height repeatedly they learned that the fall was not a threat and stopped closing. They responded, however, to shaking and other threats regularly. For several months the plants would not react to a fall, showing a memory of the stimulus. So, lacking what many consider necessary for memory storage (brain or at least a centralized neural system), they store memory anyway. This opens the possibility of other cognitive behavior in plants, even without brains.

The plant, not the drink

Of course, this is far from being proven and highly speculative, but it shows that plants need more credit than we give them.

On a side not, plants can also hear! I'm attaching the video that inspired this post, and also provided much of the information, which explains more about plant auditory and other senses.

Also, in my research I also learned about the philosophical zombie! Unfortunately its not a Descartes spouting undead being, but a thought experiment to critique the methods of measuring consciousness. It is a theoretical being who could respond as if they experienced stimuli when in fact that they had not, thus mimicking consciousness but not experiencing consciousness.

Explained by Dinosaur Comics

Civilization

Hey!

So, to respond to Dad's inquisition in my own blog:
I tend to do fun stuff in my free time, like eat and go to ward activities!

Word of the Blog:

Civilization-
: all the societies of the world

While other definitions exist, civilization as stated by my MSE professor was the above. To him, other usages (Mayan civilization, Indian Civilization, etc) is actually culture.
Two insights:
1- (general linguistics) words are very accurate; or can be, depending on the wielder of words. They can mean multiple things, but also we may not understand what actually lies behind our words.
2- My professor explained the specifics of the word civilization thus: People advancing; humanity moving forward; pushing for better, faster, stronger.

Having put us through that drill, I wish to present a second, complementary definition -

:refinement of thought, manners, or taste

I love the fact to think that our innate desire is to "superar" (Portuguese for "surmount" or "overcome"), to be more than we once were.

Civilization celebrates creating! Yay!

Love you all

Stealing Sunday

Thou shalt not....steal? Does a blog day count?

Actually what I'm doing is more like claiming something unused. Kind of like American Settlers claimed unused land in Oklahoma and elsewhere.... Uh, on second thought, this is nothing like that. Claiming a blog post day is completely innocuous. All I'm doing is making electrons move in specific patterns, against their will. Electrons don't have wills so I'm okay right?

If you happen to still be reading, I'm not really even claiming the day--it just seems to be when I have more time to post, but if you want to post on Sunday too, by all means go ahead and post. :) So onto some kind of content maybe? I was thinking that when we were all together we pretty much always knew what each other were reading, watching, or otherwise doing for enjoyment. I often found new things to enjoy because I saw that you enjoyed them. Then I thought we could have an enjoyment and entertainment check up now if we wanted! So what are you doing right now in your spare time and why do you like doing it?

My activities include but are not limited to:

Reading
American Grace - a long but facinating book on religion in the United States, how different congregations function, what people in them think, what others think about them, and how this affects our culture.
Hyperbole and a Half (no link or explanation needed) - Thanks Ruth!

Television... Really? yep
Sherlock - Sherlock Holmes set in the 21st century. Sounds meh doesn't it? But it is created/written by Steven Moffat! And everyone knows the best Doctor Who episodes are always the ones he writes. The writing here is exactly what you'd expect from Moffat--intricate, character driven, and gripping.

Occasional visits to someone in Indiana--because I can :) Your turn....

Pressuring

We all want things. In many cases, other people do not want the things we want. So we want them to want what we want.

We've all put down a book or walked out of a movie so life-changing that you can't even see straight. Your first impulse, after the initial rush has died down, is to seize the first person you see and shout "You have to see this! You'll love it! It will change your life and you'll never be sad again."

Despite your evangelical zeal, they don't seem to take your endorsement very seriously (maybe it had something to do with your glazed eyes and dribble of drool). Instead of running to the nearest bookstore and buying this book (as they should) they promise to get to it next week. Three weeks later, you've left fridge reminders, passive-aggressively asked them about it multiple times, and finally physically handed them a copy with your physical hands. But they still haven't read it. Why, they even seem to be (gasp!) avoiding it!

You've casually recommended them books before and they liked them. What the heck is their problem now?!

Why do enthusiastic endorsements backfire?

Let's empathize

See through their eyes.

It might be helpful to think of an instance when someone tried to convert you to one of their preferences and failed. What did they do wrong? For instance when your mother mentions "that nice girl down the street", and shoots a significant glance your way. Or when an old mentor figure hands you a sacred dog-eared tome along with the solemn sanction to read and ingest its wholesomeness, as they and their father before them has done.

These are people we care about. People whose opinion we respect, who have our best interests at heart.

Why exactly then are we so uneasy to take their advice?

Ok, we've spent some time on the other side of the table. Let's switch back to your perspective. Why didn't your friend take your recommendation?

It's a matter of taste

Specifically, mine vs. yours.

Believe it or not, but people have different preferences, and what is to one man the very essence of hilarity is to another just a British kid biting his bro's finger. And often that's ok. We like that, know that and respect that. But if you've gone batcrazy about this book, your friend might have decided to skirt around the edges of the issue rather than face the full fury of your evangelicalized fervor. "I haven't had time to read it" is easier to say than "I don't think I'll like it, and given your level of fanaticism, I never intend to risk our friendship on finding out."

And so, depending on the situation, a fanatic endorsement can be less effective than a casual one[1]. The more you hype something the higher the stakes. And from your friend's perspective*. If I tell you I hate it, I make you sad. If I tell you I like it (or tolerate it), you try to make me vice-president of the fan club. It's a lose-lose situation, and the risk of losing friendship is higher than any potential gain of maybe reading a good book.

You might as well be playing high-stakes poker with friends. It doesn't matter whether I lose the money or win the money and lose the friends, I'm losing either way. The only winning move is not to play[2].

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

Being coerced lowers our intrinsic motivation

If you know me, you've probably heard me talk about intrinsic motivation. Some things (like reading, eating, calling friends) you do because you find them inherently rewarding, you are intrinsically motivated. Other things (going to work, driving the speed limit, showering[3]) you do because there are external factors, or extrinsic motivations (money, social pressure) which push you to do them.

Studies have shown that if you pay somebody to do something, they don't like to do it as much. This is true even if you're paying kids to play videogames. Yes, you heard me right. Pay kids to play videogames, and they won't like playing videogames as much. They'll probably do it more, but like it a little less. When you have to do something to get paid, your ulterior motives take the edge off the enjoyment.[4]

In one study, they rewarded school kids for eating certain veggie or fruit portions during lunch. And surprise! The kids ate more of their specified rewarded-food.

BUT!

They liked that food less. And they still liked it less 7 months later. So you can pay your picky kid to eat beans, but he'll stop when the cash runs out, and he'll likely dislike beans for the rest of a long time.

This means that not only can pressuring/extorting someone to Do Thing can backfire, even simply paying them to Do Thing can backfire. It might work in the short-term, but you lose in the long-term.

I can't go into it attribution theory as much as I'd like, but let's leave it at this: The more pressure you're under, the more you'll think "I did it to get so-and-so off my back" and the less you'll think " I did it for its own sake".

People like to have control over their own lives

And don't appreciate you taking it from them

Whaaaaatt?? I know right? Whooda thunk?

When you give advice, that's fine. When you invite, that's also cool. But when you take a piece of cake and jam it down my throat with a toilet plunger, don't be hurt when I can't compliment the flavor. I probably  can't even taste it because I'm picking chunks of it out of my lungs.

I've fallen into this trap myself before. I think a few of my friends still have minor panic attacks when they hear the title of my favorite book, for fear I'll jump out from behind a corner and throw it at their head. This is a valuable lesson. Try to force a person to like it, and they'll hate it. Sad as it is, my pressuring and cajoling has permanently filed "Joseph's favorite book" under "Items that Provoke Intense Fear" in their brains. It's hard to enjoy something after that.

And as we learned from Intrinsic Motivation, even when terror is not an issue, influencing other people's attitudes is complicated, man.

So how do you convince them? Unlike many other kinds of human interaction, this is not coercion, this is not strong-arming.  I can force you to eat pickled beats, but you'll still hate pickled beats and you'll hate me even more. Forcing a person to do something is easy; you want them to like it. How do you do that?

I'll… uh-- I'll tell you next week. I'm sorry. Really sorry. Frankly, I'm surprised you've kept reading this monstrosity of rambleness this long[5]. The only explanation I can think of is that you await with a burning hunger for the secret to manipulating your friends like clay, or sock puppets.

Well, tune in next week folks!

[1]Under some circumstances. As always there are exceptions and I overly caveat all things I say.

[2]As Joshua would certainly tell you.

[3]Just for you, Ruth.

[4] Anecdotally, I've heard basketball players say the game becomes less fun once it's no longer a game.

[5] I should have cut that chunk about intrinsic/extrinsic, shouldn't've I? Or at least axed the redundancy of the forced vegetable consumption scenarios.

Your turn

So, I had another word for us to reflect on, but I decided it needed more thought process. It was like the cookies I made the other day: burnt on the bottom and uncooked at the top. 

So, rather than ruin that idea, I found an alternative. It's your turn to do an analytical decision.

Below is a scene. In a concise manner, describe the tone/theme of the picture. Rather than physical setting/"what is happening", describe what thoughts it provokes in you. 

Simplicity and a Complex World

Yes it's Sunday. But I'm posting...

I've been thinking today about the power of seeking to comprehend and view correctly a complex world while simultaneously realizing and acting as if key small and simple things are actually the foundation upon which great complexity and achievement are built.

It is easy to get lost in the complexity, grandeur and difficulty of the world and perhaps even easier to decide that there are simple truths and therefore everything is simple and straightforward. The first conclusion can lead to pride in one's own knowledge or complete despair in the impossibility of it all. The latter can lead to the exact same ends through different routes--pride because it is simple and if you'd just listen to me and despair when one follows a formula to the letter and things don't work out as expected.

The world is vey complex, and yet this complexity often grows from very simple things. How do you fold a protein precisely after assembling the DNA or form perfect crystals? It turns out you don't have to. The order arises as you add the necessary components. But if you don't ever have salt water within a given temperature and concentration range, you don't end up with salt crystals. Initial starting conditions matter greatly.

One way of saying this is that a very small turning of the smallest helm of a ship--a matter of a few degrees--determines whether it will land in California or Peru. Another is 'by small and simple things, great things come to pass'. Out of simplicity grows complexity. What simple things I focus on determine what I will learn, do, and become.

Whenever I feel my life is out of balance, I usually find that an inventory of the simple things I know I need to do comes up lacking. The converse is also true. When I am happy with life I am focusing on the simple things that matter.

When we focus on the important, but simple things first, we begin to build the capacity for handling complexity, and what was once complex begins to appear more achievable ans simple.

Now I'm not saying that the world becomes more simple, or that if you just do these five things you will be rich, content, intelligent, happy, and carefree. That would imply that life, the universe, everything really IS simple and not complex at all. (The answer is 42 by the way.)

Rather, if we'll determine what really matters and then focus on that, then the rest will seem easier and we will be able to, in the long run, and on average, build to become the people we desire to be.

What small and simple things matter to me? Glad you asked.

How sincere are my prayers? Am I having scripture study? Am I thinking about and taking the time to serve others? Am I remembering to eat and be organized? (yeah, I forget to eat sometimes :) Am I taking time for those I love? Am I taking note of how they are doing and strengthening family ties?

Am I writing? Particularly journal writing? (ouch) Am I taking the time to REMEMBER while making sure to live in the present? Am I learning, working, and serving?

Well that's a start. What small things do you find important personally at this time in your life?

Saturday is a special day (and now it's mine)

I'm stealing Saturday. I hope no one minds overmuch.

So this post was originally going to be about winter. I was going to write about the hour or so I spent shoveling snow this morning (which was actually very satisfying), finishing my parking area just as more snow started falling. I was going to gripe about the negative temperatures (if this doesn't make you feel better about your current situation, I have no idea what will). I was going to soliloquize on regrettable choices (mine specifically), wondering what drove me to this frozen wasteland (and why exactly it took me two and a half winters to question it as a life plan). Seriously, it was going to be great.

As it turns out however, I actually talked to about half of you (my lovely family) on the phone today and already kind of spilled my entire rant. The rest of you have heard it before anyway.

But never fear(!): I came up with a new idea that is even better! This post will be about......

About.....

(Just give me a minute)

Um... Cats? Nail clippings? Crosswords? Inspiration?

Sorry, I've got nothing. I remember thinking as a kid that inspiration was all about mood, that there was little point trying to create if you just weren't feeling it (don't judge too harshly; I was seven). In the intervening years, I have decided that said philosophy is completely ridiculous. Creating something (as I'm sure you are all aware) is about work and time too. And honestly, I didn't put in the time to be inspired. This post is my consequence. But, as I spent my afternoon talking to you all instead, I catalog it under Time Well Spent.