Philosophy

Going down in flames, or being OK with endings

This is a concept I’ve wanted to write for a while now, but have kept putting off and forgetting about. I was reminded of it the other day while having lunch next to a table with two girls talking about their recent breakups. Yes I was eavesdropping. Heavily.

One girl had obviously just gotten divorced and was telling her friend about some resulting confusion, and her friend had also just broken up with a long term boyfriend and was in the same kind of situation. Their conundrum was that in every relationship they’d been in, one party had done something wrong, enough to kill the relationship and cause those involved to never want to see each other again. Painful, but fairly straight forward. However in both of these girls recent relationships nothing had caused a major fracture. Rather, they had just grown slowly apart and both had realized it and decided, like rational adults, that rather than stay together in a relationship neither one of them was happy with that they should end it, and give each other the opportunity to be happy elsewhere.

The resulting confusion was they didn’t know how to treat the other person when they ran into them in the future. Painful break up exes were easy, they’d mutually snub each other and go about their business but given that they had no lingering hard feelings for these recent exes, and likewise the exes didn’t hold any ill will towards them, what the hell were they supposed to do? But this isn’t only a relationship conundrum, and I know plenty of people (myself included) who have the same kind of questions and confusion come up in regards to business in one way or another. I think at it’s core, the bits and pieces of whatever the previous situation were don’t really matter anymore, it’s all about being OK with something coming to an end.

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Making Children More Violent

Let me admit right away that this is a totally half brained, ill conceived stab in the dark of an idea but I thought I’d jot it down just since it was on my mind. I’ve been thinking a lot about Derrion Albert and now Michael Brewer and listening to pundits asking why children are getting so much more violent. Endless speculation abounds so I’m throwing in my own as well. Contrary to the popular thought that there needs to be more restrictions and more oversight, I’m left wondering if that isn’t part of the problem. Take for instance this six year old sent to reform school for 45 days for having a weapon in school, thus violating the zero tolerance policy. Except that the “weapon” was a cub scout folding dining set which had a spoon, fork, and a knife. Doesn’t that seem a bit extreme? These “zero tolerance” policies basically make it clear that no matter what you do you are going to be treated as if you did the worst possible thing, so once a kid decides to take that step and break the rule, there is really no motivation to not go all out. I don’t know if I’m expressing that idea clearly or not, and I don’t think it’s a conscious decision, but when there are clear stages of punishments for varying degrees of rule breaking people tend to not push things as far as they can.

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Taking responsibility for your own interpretations

My last post about Facebook ruining relationships (or not) got linked to about a million times but didn’t generate that much discussion. My guess is I was so long winded people either never finished it or were just too exhausted by the time did to add anything to it. That’s fine, and I’ll try and be more concise in the future. Maybe. One comment that did come in struck a chord with me and rather than follow up there I thought it deserved it’s own post. Commenter Robert K got me thinking when he said:

I once misheard a lyric by the group Stereolab. What I thought I heard was “Responsible for what I say, responsible for what I heard”, which I found incredibly illuminating. Wow. I am responsible for what I hear. Ironically, I heard the lyric wrong. The last word in the lyric is actually “hush”, not “heard”. In this case, I’m proud to take responsibility for that interpretation. But to your point, so often I forget that I am responsible for feeling annoyed with what others say or write, and it’s up to me to control my behavior, not theirs.

I’m so relieved to see someone else say this because it’s honestly something I think all the time. I often find myself in situations where people misinterpret something I’ve said and I have a negative reaction to it. I have to find a way to delicately explain that I meant something else entirely, something which probably wouldn’t elicit such a reaction. Sometimes this is because I just do a bad job explaining what I’m trying to say and sometimes it’s because people have a preconceived notion of my standpoint before I’ve said anything. It happens with business associates, friends and family. In any case it’s annoying and frustrating. How do you tell someone nicely “you are upset about something you made up in your own head” or worst “don’t get all excited just yet, you misunderstood what I was saying.”

It’s not that easy, trust me.

But this goes both ways- I learned a long time ago that interpretation was a powerful tool. Both in how others interpret you, and how you interpret others. It’s hard to control how others interpret you (hence the previous paragraph) but realizing you are in control of your own interpretations can make a huge difference in your life. This is all about trying to decode intent, but in the same way beauty is in the eye of the beholder, intent can and is often decided by the recipient. While it’s true that if you hurt someones feelings, even if you weren’t intending to, their feelings are still hurt. It’s also true that when someone is trying to hurt your feelings, simply readjusting their intent (in your own head) can soften the blow considerably. If someone tells you that “you suck” that could mean they have taken a careful look at you and found you to be sub par, and this might hurt your feelings. Or it could mean that this person just has incredibly low self esteem and the only way they can feel better about themselves is to try and push someone else down, this might make you snicker at how much they themselves suck. Not what they intended, but arguably a better interpretation, from your standpoint at least.

I think a lot of this boils down to, as Robert put it, control our own behavior. As as society we reinforce the idea that there is always someone else to blame when someone does something wrong. I don’t like to give anyone else that much power over me. If someone else upsets me, it’s because I let them upset me. If I upset someone, it’s because they are letting me do it. This is passive for most people, but when you realize it and learn that it can be an active choice then more often then not when faced with “do I want to let this person or situation upset me” the answer ends up being “no.”

Guest Editorial: It’s Obama Time

[The following post was written by Glen E. Friedman. In addition to being an incredibly talented photographer, one of the most outspoken activists for progressive change, and generally a constant inspiration, he’s also one of my closest friends. When I heard he was writing an epic piece about the current Obama/Health Care situation I offered to host it on my own site, as did many of his other friends because we felt what he had to say was important, and worth sharing. It will be up later today on his own blog as well if you’d like to pass it on and link to the source.]

It’s Obama Time!

Obama will address Congress and the American people on Wednesday –

In order for Americans to get the healthcare we all deserve, Barack Obama the POTUS, needs to take it to the scum bags on the right Wednesday night for real. No holds barred, attack ’em B-Boy style like we know you can and you never have yet. Break ’em off and down like the articulate 1st generation B-Boy we know you are under that nice suit of yours. We voted for you because we had HOPE and because we thought you represented the CHANGE that we so desperately needed. We weren’t totally delusional. We knew you were not going to nominate Ralph Nader as a supreme court judge or even put Dennis Kucinich in to head a new “Department of Peace”. Not to mention Dr. Cornel West as Secretary of State. Noam Chomsky as your personal advisor, etc., etc., no we didn’t expect any of that (although it would have been nice).

But what we did HOPE for was the guy who was cool enough in the primaries to tell us to “Brush your shoulders off” would not let himself get trampled by the “toys” in the last few months. The hypocrisy on the right has once and for all got to be spelled out for what it is, as clear as “La Di Da Di” or any nursery rhyme.

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The value of being there

Joi has a very interesting post about the difference between upside and downside focus in investing. While I don’t have the extra cash to put this kind of approach into practice (someday!) it’s not an altogether new idea for me, just a different area. I’ve been applying this kind of focus in different aspects to other parts of my life, especially travel. I’ll explain why – often the potential upside far outweighs the concrete downside especially over a long enough time line. Let me give two examples before I elaborate on that. Most people are familiar with Woody Allen’s famous quote “80% of success is showing up.” This gets laughed off a lot as if it’s a joke but it’s actually not. If you look at the entire population of people you are up against in any field there are two massive chunks that this eliminates – The people who assume they won’t succeed and don’t try, and the people who try once and fail and don’t try again. Simply by showing up and trying again and again, the law of averages is in your favor with no consideration of talent or skill. Determination goes a very long way in much of life.

But this isn’t just luck of the draw by any means, it’s also one of the best ways to make sure that your talents and skills are in fact noticed. For many years I trained in Bujinkan and a story frequently passed on about the Grandmaster Hatsumi Sensei is that one of the reasons he was given the title was not that he was the best student, but that he was the most dedicated. This wasn’t to challenge his skill, there’s no question he’s a total bad ass, but to show the rewards of putting in the effort. The story is that many of Takamatsu Sensei‘s students regularly attended his classes, but none as frequently as Hatsumi Sensei. This was especially important because Hatsumi Sensei had to travel by train, often 15+ hours to make it to a class, where as many other students who were much closer didn’t always attended. Because of his dedication his skill was recognized. He didn’t look at the downside of making that kind of trek, he focused on the potential upside of what the training would lead to.

So bringing this all back to the main point, I often look at the upsides and downsides to a trip (be it to a conference or to a city). The downside is instantly tangible and easy to obsess over – this trip will cost me X and will require X days away from normal work, friends, family, etc. That is enough to convince most people not to go, or to go once and if they don’t see results not to go back. However, the potential upside of continuing to go, again and again is massive. Regardless of your talent or skill, if you aren’t around the harder it is for people to recognize it, where as if you are around all the time people get to know you and what you are good at. Being in the proximity of smart and talented people more often gives you a higher chance of interacting with and working with those people. This can result in fantastically cool pay offs, but patience is required sometimes. It’s not a tangible ROI you can calculate, but being dedicated showing up more often than someone else can only work in your favor.

But it’s not only business – in simple travel this applies to. On a long enough time line the benefits of being well rounded and well traveled far exceed the downsides of the cost (time/money) of any one trip, yet it’s the exactly that single trip cost that prevents most people from doing this.

I guess what I’m saying is that similar to Joi’s points about some investors ruining a deal because they are obsessing over a point here or there, my approach in life is that obsessing about the little details can cause you to miss out on the larger reaching rewards. Like Joi mentions in his post, in the worst case situation all you lose is the $ of the initial investment, but the potential upside is so much greater. In a way it’s “can’t see the forest for the trees” theory. Focus on the little stuff too much and you miss the really impressive big stuff.

Not So Quick Travel Blip

I’m prone to those revelations where something blinks and things suddenly make sense but your excitement for this new understanding is clouded by your annoyance that you didn’t figure it out earlier and save yourself mountains of stress and frustration. And sometimes those revelations aren’t even that clear, you know know that you’ve jumped back on the right track somehow after being off it for some unknown period of time, even if you have no early idea where that track is leading you.

For me the moment of inspiration happened for me about 20 minutes ago while sitting on Green Line train somewhere underneath Washington DC. I’ve been reading ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King which I can’t recommend enough – it’s one of the best books I’ve read about being creative and life in general. I didn’t buy it thinking it was a philosophy book but it’s turned out to be an amazing one. Actually I bought it almost a year ago and it’s been sitting on my shelf most of that time. I’ve taken it with me on two trips and never cracked it open. Recently I realized that I’ve been enjoying reading books on the kindle app on my iphone (nothing else to carry, easy to manage, etc) and bought the kindle version of it before I left LA just in case I found the time.

I’ve found the time and much more. What I know is this, I’ve read almost 6 books on the kindle for iphone app in the last 2 months which is a better pace than I’ve read in hardcopy since I was required to read 10 books over sumer vacation one elementary school year. I also figured out that the more I read the more I write and I find inspiration in how others compose their thoughts and tell stories about their lives and experiences that I would have previously thought trivial. Since Friday I’ve probably written 10 full pages, in addition to reading most of this book and going to a wedding. For some people that is nothing, but for me it’s a massive milestone.

What I’m figuring out is my routines get in my way. At home I go all day long trying to get in the mood to write and by the end of the day still haven’t gotten there or gotten the general life things out of the way either. That’s not to say I need to get away from real life to find this motivation, but more so that I’ve created these blocks in my daily routine that clearly aren’t real if I can shed them simply by sitting on a subway for a few minutes reading a book on my phone.

So now that I know where the walls are I can start to avoid them or better yet break them down. I’m feeling really inspired right now, and very happy with what I’ve put to paper. Maybe it’s the coffee or cupcakes I just ate, and maybe it’ll fade away but it feels really good and I’m hoping I just took a step that I’ve been trying to take for years.