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News source: Logic Matters

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News source: Arts & Letters Daily

Jim Kwik is the type of person I typically would steer away from. He appears to have created an industry around, well, himself. As a self-styled learning expert, he focuses on self-helpish type activities such as speed reading, memorization techniques, and enhancing “brain performance.” He sells t-shirts that sport fake college logos and has photos of himself with famous people on his web page. Not exactly my jam. In fact, I like to read slowly for pleasure and couldn’t care less about hanging around with people that are known for being well known. But I listened to an interview with him on a podcast and he does have some damn good ideas.

One of those ideas is a method for helping focus the mind on things that prevent us from moving forward on goals we want to accomplish. We all have those things that we work at for months or years that never seem to move forward. While we typically tend to think about our goals in terms of the specifics about what we want to accomplish, we may not spend the time thinking about why we haven’t been able to accomplish them — at least not in a clear way that can help us move forward.

Kwik’s idea is that there probably is an overarching psychological block that not only is impacting your ability to reach your goals but affecting all other parts of your life and health. So he suggests that we spend time thinking about that one question that will isolate that issue and we should ask ourselves that question every day perhaps multiple times a day when we noticed that we can’t make progress on something. The essence of the question as I’m framing it is this:

What is the one thing that dominates my mind when I need to act?

The question should be framed as “Why do I . . .?” or “Why am I . . .?” or “Why don’t I . . .” The idea is that you frame the question broadly to isolate a mindset and not specifically to get at why you didn’t do this or that one thing.

I did this little experiment and it was very enlightening. The question I came up with is “Why do I fear so much?” Now that’s not a very well-worded question. Asking “Why am I afraid?” is better grammatically. But I want to use the term “fear” because it captures more of the emotional state I believe I’m feeling in a variety of situations. As I thought about it, I realized that I tend not to do a whole host of things because I have fear of the outcome. I fear I’ll fail. I fear I won’t be liked. I fear I’ll offend someone. I fear the outcome won’t be what I want. I fear the future.

I was raised in a fairly toxic home environment where absolute authority, whether it be parental or divine, was the reason most things should be done. Duty and obedience where the operating model for behavior. And fear was the mechanism of obedience. If you don’t do X, bad things will happen. So I learned day in and day out that I must follow the rules or be punished or get a verbal undressing or upset a parent (or God). Fear became my default emotional state. That became a dominate “meta-narrative” that has been a part of me my entire adult life.

Over the past few days, as I’ve focused on things I need or want to do but don’t do them, I’ve begun to notice that my stomach tightens up on regular basis when I think about relationships, or about a task I have to do at work, or about writing, or about what book to read. I’ve noticed that when I have to make certain decisions, I hesitate and spend way too much time thinking through all the options. I notice that I’ll hesitate to reach out to a friend or fail to send an email I need to send or don’t make a purchase I thought I had decided to make. As I’ve started noticing these things, I ask myself the question and have realized that fear is at the root of all it.

I’ve also noticed that when I attempt to answer the question, the answers aren’t really substantial. The thing I fear really isn’t worth worrying about. So what if I get rejected? So what if I don’t get the best price? Who cares if that person gets upset because I asked them to do something? Of course I want to be genuine and kind in my interactions. I want to do some research to find a good price. I need to make sure I’m doing the things that let me sleep well at night before I act. But once I’ve done those things, don’t fear the outcome. The answer to the question of why I fear typically doesn’t have a good answer and so I shouldn’t fear.

I’ve tried to embrace the Socratic Method in my intellectual life and ask more questions and make fewer statements. Kwik’s suggestion is to make yourself both Socrates and Glaucon, both the questioner and the one who provides the reply.

What is your one question?

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News source: Arts & Letters Daily

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News source: Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // News

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News source: Logic Matters

I heard a quote a couple of days ago that has stuck in my head and incessantly keeps repeating in my mind. It is this simple phrase:

Addiction is a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure.

It was stated by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist. It hit me between the eyes and I can’t stop thinking about it. It struck me because I’ve noticed over the past few years that I’m finding less pleasure in a variety of things that formerly may have energized me and immense pleasure in a few activities and people. The problem has become that when I’m not doing those things or with those people, I experience a sense of dread—sometimes mild, sometimes pronounced—because what I’ve come to label as the mundane simply don't do it for me anymore. In other words, I’m experiencing the narrowing that Huberman talks about.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that I’ve also gotten more particular. I have far less tolerance for bullshit or inane conversation so the people I enjoy hanging out with has been narrowing. I can’t stand the nonsense on social media so I generally stay off of it. I find a lot of the news media manipulative, hyperbolic, and much of the time, just dishonest so I don’t read or listen to it. I pick up a popular book and find it superficial or repetitive against everything else I’ve read so I read a couple of chapters and set it down. I even find the attempts to be creative tedious because I continually remind myself how many past attempts to produce something I’m proud of have failed.

As this list gets longer over time, I find myself gravitating to the much shorter list of things I actually do enjoy. Those few friends that challenge me. Travel to places I love or have never been. That rare book that opens up dark corners in my intellectual and emotional life. In a way, I’ve become addicted to these things and that addiction has progressively narrowed my ability to find pleasure in everything else.

In a very real sense, this is a disease of getting older. When I was a young man I couldn’t figure out why a lot of older people I met seemed so grouchy and intolerant. I’m realizing that as people age (or, let’s say charitably, become more mature), many just start selectively filtering what they’ll allow in their lives and they have come to appreciate and focus on the things that bring them happiness. They’ve learned, either intentionally or subconsciously, to say no to everything else. If not managed this can turn into intolerance and rigidity. And, what the Huberman quote brought to the surface is that it can be a kind of addiction.

So perhaps the key is to learn to selectively filter but also to find small pleasures in anything you decide to spend time on and, perhaps most importantly, open yourself up to new things—create a progressive expansion of the things that might bring you pleasure. In thinking about the Huberman phrase this week, I came to appreciate the selective filtering that aging and maturity has brought. But I also realized that I’m leaving a lot on the table if I don’t allow myself to find pleasure in dozens of other ways that I may not have experienced yet.

I’ve become addicted to the things I love. But perhaps there or more addictions I haven’t yet found. Between the two is, perhaps, the sweet spot.

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News source: Cassandra's Legacy

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News source: Arts & Letters Daily