As observers, we judge behavior according to whether, as actors, we could or would do the same thing. If I take a basketball shot from the outer key (and make it), I am looked at as though I took a risk. What that means is that my
perceived competence exceeded someone else’s estimates of her own competence. It does not mean that I took more of a risk than someone else would have, had she felt as confident as I. I took the shot because I believed I could make it. However, since the observer would not have risked the shot and does not know my perceived level of competence, she presumes that I’m a risk taker. Enjoying the compliment, I do not argue. But being aware of all these elements is in the nature of mindfulness.
Langer’s little book is chock-full of such luminous insights.
Ellen J. Langer’s excellent Mindfulness talks a lot about how “a preoccupation with outcome [over process] can make us mindless”. But the opposite is just as true: an overpreoccupation with process over outcome can make us equally mindless.
[Jason Fried:] “Big business loves mediocrity:
They put process first and product second. As long as you go through this process and all these objectives are met along the way, then what comes out at the end is considered successful, no matter what. It doesn’t up set anyone,but doesn’t make them happy, either. It’s safe. I can’t deal with that.”
Mindlessness lurks everywhere.
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
—Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
media breakdown
n.
World withdrawal into prolonged media sprees, especially if sudden and marked by depression. Tinged with apathy, alienation, and escapism, it is brought into being by digital’s media unprecedented affordances: abundance and easy, immediate replayability. It will be to our century, what hysteria was to Freud’s: the neurosis of the time.
Nowhere is it more widespread than in Japan, the world’s media beachfront: Tokyo’s youth indulges in it in custom-built sanctuariesELZR, the national anime waxes philosophical on itELZR, and an extreme variant of the condition, with the name of hikikomori WP (ã?²ã??ã?“ã‚‚ã‚Š or 引ã??ç¯ã‚Š lit. “pulling away, being confined,” i.e., “acute social withdrawal”), has received intense mainstream-media attention.
I didn’t think much of this essay the first time around but it has worked its way into my head since. The distinction it makes, between perfection-oriented and performance-oriented individuals is crucial and thought-provoking. Read it.
Idling at the pool with my sister Chepe I came up with a 3-question test I specially liked. I have no psychological training whatsoever (nor do I believe in much of it) so I don’t have any ready-made answers at the ready if you do decide to answer it. But I promise it will be interesting and make you think (and that’s as good a yardstick for doing something as any).
Pay special attention to the wording and the intended meaning. It is not whether you would rather be intelligent or empathic, is whether you would prefer to have some more intelligence or some more empathy than what you already have.
3-question test
(1) Would you rather have more intelligence or more empathy?
(2) Would you rather have more
1) or more
self-confidence?
(3) Would you rather have more
2) or more
self-control?
My answers btw, are empathy, empathy, and self-control.
What a wonderful surprise! Reading about Google’s Marissa Mayer —I have this obsession in which I obsess for days about certain people— I found out she got a BS in Symbolic Systems in Stanford. That’s right, there is such a thing! I’m shaking with excitement. I’m reading the career description online but my eyes just keep pushing ahead. It’s a weird mixture of “artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and symbolic logic.” Even “human-computer interaction” is thrown into the mix. I mean, a degree with symbol in its title! Could you possibly ask for more?
All the more reason to visit Stanford this May 13!
Movie Director: How was it?
Major Motoko Kusanagi: I certainly wouldn’t say it was a bad movie.
But no matter what kind of entertainment it is… it should be temporary. With no beginning or ending, the audience is bewitched into not letting go of a movie like this.
I don’t think there’s anything wonderful about that. In fact, it’s rather harmful.
Director: Oh, harsh. You’re trying to say that we should return to reality, right?
Major: That’s right.
Director: There are people in this audience who have unhappy things waiting for them if they return. If you take away the audience’s dreams, will you also take on their responsibilities?
Major: No, I won’t. Dreams only have meaning because we struggle in the waking world. Just projecting yourself into other people’s dreams is the same as being dead.
Director: A realist, eh?
Major: If you call someone who runs away from reality a romantic.
Director: Such a strong girl. Call me when you’ve made your beliefs reality. We’ll come out of this theater when that time comes.
I don’t think it needs much context but this conversation takes place inside some sort of virtual reality where dozens of people are voluntary trapped watching an endless film. A favorite quote of mine. I had to transcribe it myself because it’s nowhere to be found around the web. Weird, that.
