Relative wealth, the art of comparison

We all have millionaire plans, don't we?

Nothing weird about that. After all money plays a certain roll guaranteeing ones life standard (…and girls get attracted to it). Even though sociologists say money have diminishing effects on happiness with increased fortune, a larger fortune also increases independence. It really feels nice to do whatever I feel like doing without bothering about the cost.

I just had a meeting with an apartment broker to value my apartment which I am considering selling within a not so distant future. It ended with quite some disappointment since the value hasn’t increased as much as I expected. Combined with a persistent market stagnation affecting some other investments I can only conclude that my fortune is growing slower then planned.

Now, to the point. What does this realization mean. Lots of personality coaches and self help gurus suggest you should look into yourself rather then comparing yourself to others. This issue was also well described in an article in “The Economist” considering depressed millionaires. Despite having an impressive fortune seen with the eyes of common people, they didn’t consider themselves being rich since they didn’t compare themselves to the poor but to the other parents in they children’s private schools.

But I still disagree with the life coaches saying comparisons with others are bad fore you, since in my situation it is the look inside that created the discomfort of lower results. As a normal competitive person i intend to advance from my current level to a higher one disregarding other people  (I have a  large ego).

Perhaps a comparison to others wouldn’t be so bad after all. As most people I wouldn't describe myself as rich, but I have to admit that my life is free from economical problems. So what does that mean in a wider perspective. Well, the key is to choose the right group of reference for the comparison.

So I analyzed the statistical income distribution for the entire nation and as a matter of fact I found out that my current income hit spot on the 90 percentile, and taking my, in this context, low age into account it looks even better. In this new light it feels somewhat ridiculous to complain about private economy. 

A new lesson learned after those considerations is to stop looking so much into myself and to start noticing ALL the others.

Praise for an Evening Walk in London

It is rare that I find myself without company in a town I know. But tonight – there are no dinners, no presentations, no easy women and no work to do. I am all on my own – in the dead center of London W1 an W2.

I decide to walk, just cruise the streets of this fantastic city. I walk alone, mind in the present and body in a good suit – dressed up like someone from an old time, before London turned cosmopolitan. I walk, a nostalgic stranger in a town that has outgrown the history I know about it.

My journey begins at my hotel in Paddington Station. Some may say that Greece, maybe even Egypt, is the cradle of civilization. But I beg to differ – England is where what we know as western civilization was born. In these steel buildings of Brunel the first trains stopped to pick up passenger to bring the world together. It is in this country that flight was invented. And modern healthcare, doubling our life expectancy, was founded here. Newtonian physics was discovered, along with electricity, refrigeration and the steam engine. And this city, magnificent London, is where it all came together.

My feet take me down Edgeware Road. Past the Lebanese cafes, where people sit outside and smoke the hashish. I walk past the veiled women, and though they cannot show anything but their eyes – I see that they are wearing makeup and have plucked their eyebrows. On her burka clad arm hangs a Gucci bag and her gait clearly shows that stiletto heels hide under that dress. What has London’s transformative power done to this Islamic culture? Truly a place where you renew yourself.

I pass Marble Arch and Park Lane. Home of the rich Russians in exile from Putin. From there, I slowly approach the chaos of Picadilly Square. The wall of noise and visual impression stun me for a  moment. But I quickly shake it off – shutting it out. Picadilly Circus was never for me – yet I know what awaits me just around the corner.

A short while later, I walk though the gates of Chinatown. Chinese”medicine” men peddle their cures with before/after pictures of women in colourful dresses. Strange massages with names I cannot pronounce are advertised in the windows – I briefly consider getting one. Mr. Wu sells his noodles soup with ingredients I can only guess at (do they truly eat dogs in China?). But I love it still – I suck in the atmosphere and savior the utter foreignness of it all. Even here – London has wrecked it’s transformative powers. The men wear well made suits – and they are not black and white like most Chinese businessmen clones. The petite women walk around in their Karen Millen dresses. The small, strange stores fade away – Chinatown is behind me.

And this of course means that I am now in Soho. Home of alternative bars, musicals, strip joints and gay porn stores. I walk the narrow roads of sin, just experiencing it all. An observer from a lost time, time travelled into the future. I let myself be filled with wonder at the sheer madness and joy of my environment.

My aimless wandering takes me to Leicester Square. The young, scantily clad, pale English women walk past me. Youngsters in search of the that mythical night club, where you can have fun without bringing it yourself. The “facers” of the street give me one look, and decide that I will not be buying the latest musical based on some half famous movie (What’s next? “Avatar the Musical” – featuring blue painted actors singing new age songs and shooting arrows at the audience for full immersion effect?).

It is late, time to go back to Hotel. I am inspired to write this blog. I walk back to Picadilly to the Bakerloo line. Into the infernal heat of the tube in this summer night. But I don’t mind the heat – for I find myself in one of the oldest public transportations systems in the world.

After short stop at the hotel, the porter hails me a black cab. Another London tradition. I return to the Lebanese bar, Salt. A fusion place where I can enjoy the strange combination of the hashish and whisky (and hey, I just noticed: they heated the whisky to body temperature for me). The nicotine is working its way though my blood – I am relaxed and immersed. another cosmopolitan, anonymous stranger – how very typical London.

The Trap of Working to Escape Reality

Lately, I have observed a highly unbalanced state inside myself. The symptoms have been as unpleasant for me as they have for those I hold closest. In response to a series of emotionally painful events – I have fallen into a trap. One that I was too late to notice – or perhaps unable to escape.

It started innocently enough – with a very long streak of travel. Much, much longer than normal. Sitting here at the end of the period – I realize that 4 months on the road has done nothing to ease my struggles – even made the symptoms worse. There really is no way to run away from the workings of your mind in this world – no mountaintop too high to dampen the sound of your inner voices screaming.

During my travel, it is usual for me to slow down communications with my private life. I am after all on the road to get a job done. But this time, it was different. With fear, seemingly unable to act on it, I saw myself shutting down communication with even my closest friends. I would look at the phone ringing – and simply not be able to pick it up. Instead, I would dig even deeper into my job – hiding from who knows what – always finding an excuse to get something more done. I can guarantee you – if you work for a US corporation – they will keep taking your time until you stop them.

It took me weeks to realize that I had cut off people I normally spoke to very often. I felt a constant guilt of not returning calls and leaving very little signs of life. Somehow, this state was acceptable – or at least stable. I sought silence from the world outside.

But of course, this is also the road to depression, or at least introvert behavior. Neither desirable to me. I have felt a constant anger inside – a defensive stance to the world (more so than usual, for those who have read my previous posts). Only this time the anger was different. My usual mental state is that of a predator – ready to fight fairly for survival in a US corporate world of idiots. In battle stance for any verbal challenge thrown at me. But no, this other anger was different. It is the anger of a caged animal – uselessly gnawing at the bars of its cage. Looking at its captor with teeth barred – yet without a fair change of winning. It is this anger, prodded forward by passive/aggressiveness – that eats you up inside. It has no outlet – and it turns its destructive fury on your very integrity. It is what you get when you put your hope in the world around you – and feel let down by how the world returns the favor.

And what is one to do when disappointed by the world or people in it? I know of only three answers: Either walk away, stop hoping or find something else to focus on. I do not give up hope in the world – I believe in people! But before you can see those bars of the cage – before you realize they will not budge to your strength – what do you do? In my case – I work. Too many hours. I get on yet another plane – see another amazing sight. I eat the wrong things, forgetting my body. The smile on my face fades – my wit goes dull. Instead, I snap at the people around me for any insult – perceived or real. I stop defending what is right – and instead spend my strength barring my teeth (uselessly so) at my captors and all the things that are wrong (somehow, the world never runs out of things that are wrong). I grumble, become introvert and stop contributing to the natural order of things.

As I sit here – realizing what has held me captive – one question creeps into my mind: “What if this is the way most of the world feels, most of the time?”.

Shirt Essentials

Last week I visited London, partly for having some great fun and partly for doing som shopping. Amongst others I needed some shirts and therefore went to Jermyn Street in Westminster (London). Jermyn Street is to shirts what Savile Row is to suits.

In 1898 gentlemen's shirt retailer and manufacturer Thomas Mayes Lewin opened his first shop in Jermyn Street, and today he has 75 shops all over the United Kingdom. T.M. Lewin also now boasts a fine website (http://www.tmlewin.co.uk/), with a large community and some very good videos, which is of very good help to the upcoming gentleman (or other shirt wearers).

The first video will tell you how to tell the different collars aside.


The second teaches you how to iron.


After ironing folding the shirt comes next.


Finally pick the right tie.

Mediocrity – the Perfect Way to Spoil Beauty

I am sitting in the Maui airport after 5 days here at this tropical island. It has been a time of realization and also of some spectacular beauty.

For anyone going here – I highly recommend driving on the Hana road. The waterfalls, beaches and lava formations are humbling. Nature at it’s wildest. Pick up a handful of pebbles at Black Sand Beach smoothed by years of wild waves crashing on that shore. Walk in the lava tunnels and climb up the volcano Hanealuka. This is nature at its wildest, mountains pushed out of the sea  by plate tectonics. Massive rock thrown around on the ground, as if strewn by some giant baby, by pressure from the core of the earth. The crashing waves of the pacific on the coastline – an ocean view so wide you can see the curvature of the earth.

Why am I then so sad as I sit here in the airport? Because I find myself happy to leave this place. I’ve never quite understood what the compulsive traveler meant by a place being spoiled by tourism. No matter how many places you have gone to escape your own shadow and “find yourself” – you are still a tourist when you arrive at another culture. Who are you, to think you have some unique privilege of being their before the “other” tourists.

But now I understand what it means for a place to be spoiled by tourists. Is has something to do with ambient noise and choice. And it happens when the American middle class discovers the location.

It is immediately obvious on arrival at the hotel. The bars have TV-screens going at high volume, showing sports and CNN. And the noise from the people! The chatter of irrelevant “how are yous”, the excessive use of: “Like”, “You Know”, “Kinda” and other fill words. The content-free conversations you overhear. I have been in the craziest streets of Istanbul, the cafes of Soho, the pubs of Dublin and the rave discos of Amsterdam. I have even been on the charter locations of Gran Canaria and Tenerife and the snobbish coasts of the French Riviera. But nowhere in the world have I found such irrelevant chatter of pleasantries, background noise, too loud muzak and political “non confrontational” correctness as on Hawaii. Even out there in nature, where the stunning beauty should just leave you silent in awe, you hear the uncaring “how are you?” and the gold digging “so what do you do?” blah blah.

Now, it does not end at the noise and the children who of course, poor souls, pick up that behavior from their parents. The mediocrity runs deeper.

It all starts with morning coffee. At the sign on the hotel coffee cart it said: “We are proud to brew Starbuck coffee” – of course backed by muzak that is just that little bit too loud. Folks, let’s get this straight: NOONE is proud to brew Starbucks – the lowest common denominator coffee. America: Proud is not the same as “won’t kill you if you drink it”. There is nowhere on this island that you an get a decent cup of coffee. The locals, when asked, just shrug their shoulders and tell you they share the pain.

The food is fatty, the prices are high – but it is “good value” because you get a mountain of food for your USD. The big chains take over to serve the 80% population: the fat, “entitled”, irresponsible, gladiator watching, pale, lipo-suctioned and uneducated masses. In the process – all local dealers close shop – having been offered a great retirement plan for their little spot on the beach. Who wouldn’t take that offer? It makes money, it’s optimized and popular, so it has to be good – right?

And then there is the irresponsibility. At the valet parking (25 USD / night – “don’t want you to have the discomfort of walking the 50m to the parking lot – no sireee”) I asked the parking guy to put the GPS in the glove department for me. Response: “Sorry sir, I cannot do this. I do not want to be responsible if it breaks”. Poor guy – probably afraid there will be a lawyer on his tail in case I (or the hotel) do not feel I can handle or forgive such an event – should the extremely unlikely happen.

The culture of greed and irresponsibility seems to have no limits. Once the big consumption driven money arrives – silence, sanity and peace of mind goes away. We are left with an invading, moaning, zombie army crawing entertainment and comfort – out to destroy real life quality and bring us all into the realm of the undead. I have sworn to myself that from now on – I will research my vacation destinations more thoroughly – and if there is an abundance of American middle class there – it is “no thanks sireee” for me.

America – you have a large part of your population that is a disgrace to the human race and a disease to this planet. Please, please become the great nation you once were. Greed is not the solution.

And for the rest of the world – stop buying from the mega corps of America and be proud of your culture – one not driven by greed as the only mantra. Your local coffee is great (Italy, Turkey and Saudi Arabia: hear me!) – don’t buy into the Starbucks brand. You can take the blame for your own mistakes and you can be proud that you can still discuss your political (and religious) opinions on a street cafe without being considered politically incorrect. Don’t use your hard earned cash to fill the war chest of the US mega corporations – just say no to America. That is the only cure and every dollar you spend is a vote in the global economy.

Energy as source of attraction

During the past few weeks I felt a substantial variation of energy in me. I am talking about the energy that is conveyed by attractive, happy, extrovert, value-giving people. The kind of energy that characterizes a person who enjoys his time and makes everyone enjoy it with him. That is how I felt on New Years Eve after a week of Christmas vacation. After a great night out MindGame pointed out to me “Man, you really looked glad that night”. Quite a difference from last weekend when I almost fell asleep in the bar.

Fatigue caused by excessive workload and stress has repeatedly been classified as a main reason to an unhappy life  by many psychologists, health coaches and self help gurus. In a modern society full of deadlines and result expectations trying to cut down sleep sometimes is the only way to get spare time. But the necessity to fulfil your primary needs impedes the joy of whichever activity causing even more unhappiness.

I suppose everyone has experienced the frustration of hearing the alarm clock. The sound that every morning initiates a tiring conflict within your brain between the frontal lobe (the more sophisticated part of the brain responsible for long term planning) telling you to get up and go to work to grant your income and thereby your survival, and the primitive core shouting: SLEEEEP!!!! After a while these two come to a compromise. You press the snooze button…

And the snooze function works. During a night you oscillate between deep sleep and a stage of awakening. The above mentioned conflict occurs when you are in a phase of deeper sleep. After pressing snooze you fall asleep again but you will not reach the same depth of your sleep pattern before the alarm goes next time which gives the frontal lobe an advantage. 

The  sleep pattern is systematic. It is possible to trace your rhythm so that you adopt to get up when you are in a shallower phase of your sleep. That will make all the standard good- morning procedures easier but it will not limit your need for rest. A normal adult should have around eight hours of sleep every night to be in a state of mind that gives him a possibility to enjoy his entire day.

I have tried different methods to increase my awaken hours. From systematic reduction of sleep time to trying to increase vitamin production by exposing myself to UV-light of a solarium (scientific method, a hypothesis has to be tested).  But nothing worked. If you want to become more attractive, alert and able to project your happiness on your environment, forget all about vitamin pills, meditation etc… Get some rest.

Grow by travelling

Earlier this autumn I went on on a backpacking journey to Asia visiting Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Persuaded that it will make it easier for me to meet new people, I went alone.

It gave me a lot of experiences, growth of self confidence and change of mindsets. It took me a while to sort it all out in my brain to put it in short form down on paper. I will here focus on the ways I have developed my personality rather than on experienced events and I will start at the moment when the changes of my views of the world first became clear to me, after coming back home.

Seeing my living room for the first time in a month it was far bigger then I remembered it. The excess of Nordic low intensity light gave a feeling of cold vastness, contrary from small and dusty Asian hotel rooms where intense sunlight through a small window filled the room with heat. The room has not changed I have. The change was of the kind earlier described by Shastar in War of the World Models.

My model expanded by seeing that in real life different culture, different perception of time, different ambitions among people and different social norms work in an organized society. Even if the kind of organization differs a lot from the western world, there normally are logical explanations to the differences. Sometimes the bus gets delayed by two hours, but in some regions buses are the only means of transportation used not only for passengers but also for mail. Every now and then they take a different road in order to deliver a package (i.e. seven 50 kg-bags of rice). Like most stressed westerners you could, to the locals great contempt, find somebody to yell at, or you could just accept the fact that you are in Cambodia. After all, you are experiencing the normal life of that country.

Getting to understand other ways of life made it easier for my to challenge my own views and disobey the social norms I have been taught during my childhood, which I have found limiting to my personality. Also it has become easier for my to avoid being upset about lots of those annoying incidents we are subject to every day (such as delayed buses).

The nervousness I initially felt about going alone was rapidly gone. To my great relief I found that there were thousands of people like me travelling alone, only hooking up with someone for short periods of time which sometimes led to longer friendship. Actually it was harder to avoid meeting anyone then to meet someone. If you do not start to talk to anyone, someone will initiate a conversation with you.

People are generally friendly as long as you are being friendly to them. That realization helped me to be more confident in social situations and to avoid the feeling of loneliness.

In my opinion, travelling like this is the ultimate way of enriching ones personality. On the inside you gain self confidence and motivation to do what you want even when your will conflicts with all the others. To the outside your model of the world grows to cover more views of life. It makes you more tolerant to other peoples ideas and you on the other hand get more respected among them. What you have to say gets paid more attention to since your stories are actually based on real experiences that the others might not have.

Laptop on the go – Experiences after two months

Since my previous blog entry about going lightweight I have acquired some experiences. I have also bought myself a kitchen scale – to tally up the total weight of my portable office.

Power adaptors and converters:

I have located very nice solution to power the laptop. Kensington produces an nice universal laptop adaptor. It comes with the small “number 8 shaped” power cable – for quick resupply if you happen to forget the cable (which I sometimes do). As a neat extra, the power adaptor has a USB power port – allowing quick iPhone charging without plugging in the laptop.

The iPhone charger from Kensington solves a common problem with this Apple Device: Running out of battery. Even with wireless and bluetooth disabled, I rarely survive more than 24 hours on a single charge. The Kensington charger, apart from being usable from a standard USB cable (which the standard iPhone is not) will give me double the charges on the go. This has saved me from call disconnects several times already.

• Power Adaptor: 220g
• iPhone charger and battery adaptor: 36g
• USB foldable cable: 6g
• Universal Power Converter: 52g

For the frequent Europe traveller: Kensington utilities are available from Heathrow Terminal 5.

Bonus programs and travel documents

I am now member of 5 different bonus programs for hotels. Each of them supplies me with a credit card sized plastic membership card. It has become too much to carry this around in my tiny metal wallet (I never carry cash around – so I can do with a credit card holder).

The realization is simple: I only need my membership cards when I have my laptop on me (which I always do when I check into a hotel). Hence, the cards belong in the laptop case – I have acquire a little light weight leather wallet for them. It will also hold my passport and any visa documents I may need.

• Membership cards and wallet: 75g

I could probably reduce this weight a bit…

Laptop and bag

It turned out that my choice of a messenger bag was just right. The flap covering the laptop help keep it dry, even when it is pouring down (Which is has been several times since I last wrote about this).

A neoprene cover give me the flexibility to quickly and safely carry the laptop  between buildings during rainy days, without the need to carry the entire laptop case. Flexibility is good.

I have now used my new Sony VAIO for more than two months – and I am loving it. It is quick, predictable and powerful. They keyboard is a pleasure to type on and the battery life is at least 6.5 hours.

There are however a few bad things to be said about the VAIO: Sony’s support is miserable and I loathe their driver download system – getting Win7 running stable took a few tries (and in this case, Windows cannot be blamed). Sony DID supply the right drivers from their website, but getting them installed was not as easy as I would wish for. But since I updated the display driver – things have run smooth.

The VAIO, unlike the MacBook Air, is for experts that will not compromise on functionality. It does not have the the “I am a designer with a sense of aesthetics” look of the MacBook – but it has the power you need to use it as a professional work tool.

• Laptop Messenger Bag: 475g
• Sony VAIO Z-Series: 1.550g (with extended battery)
• Neoprene Cover: 220g

Miscellaneous

I always carry a pen (for signing documents), a pile of business cards and some medicine for emergencies (Anti-Histamine and Ibuprofen).

• Pen: 20g
• Business Cards: 25g
• Medicine: 6g

Summary

After two months of testing, I am quite happy with my new travelling office. I think it is still possible to reduce weight more – for example, I can shave off a few gram here and there on the extras, perhaps get a lighter laptop bag too.

My only concern is that I sometimes panic shortly when carrying my laptop. I stop to ponder if it has been stolen or I just stopped noticing the weight.

Books That Influenced our Thinking

(By MindGame and Schastar)

Throughout life, you read books and watch presentations that deeply influence your thinking. Classic works of art and science that touch a certain note in your soul and help you understand yourself and the world better.

Today, this information is so readily available on the web that we can now link you directly to it. So here goes – our list of recommended reading and watching

Ethics, morality and Human Interaction

• William L. Ury, Roger Fisher & Bruce M. Patton: “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In”, ISBN: 978-0395631249
• Steven Pinker: “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, ISBN: 978-0142003343
  • One of the best arguments against post-modernism
• Barbara Pease & Allan Pease: “The Definitive Book of Body Language”, ISBN: 978-0553804720
  • Teach yourself to control your own body language – and read what others are not telling you
• Frederick P. Brooks: “"The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering”, ISBN: 978-0201835953
  • An enlightening memoir of how humans collaborate on large projects. And about what goes wrong when they do
  • While this is about software engineering – the lessons learned here apply to all complex projects
• Carl Sagan: “The introduction to Pale Blue Dot”, YouTube clip with a beautiful introduction to earth

Atheism

• Bertrand Russell: “Why I Am Not A Christian And Other Essays On Religion And Related Subjects”, ISBN:  978-1409727217
• Richard Dawkins: “The God Delusion”, ISBN: 978-0618918249
• Christopher Hitchens: “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”, ISBN: 978-0446697965
  • Nothing new, but no one puts it quite like “the Hitch”

The Human Mind

• Daniel C. Dennett: “Freedom Evolves”, ISBN: 978-0142003848
• Daniel C. Dennett & Douglas R. Hofstadter: “The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul”, ISBN: 978-0465030910
• Douglas R. Hofstadter: “Gödel, Escher, Bach – An Eternal Golden Braid”, ISBN: 978-0465026562
• Bertrand Russell: “The conquest of Happiness”, ISBN: 978-0871401625
• Steven Pinker: “How the Mind Works”, ISBN: 978-0393334777

Style and Women

• Alan Flusser: “Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion”, ISBN: 978-0060191443
  • The only guide you will ever need to dressing yourself like a classic gentleman with style and flair ( The writing style can come across as obnoxiously snobby)
• Neil Strauss: “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”, ISBN: 978-0060554736
  • The introduction on how to pick up woman. And  a moral lesson on how to behave when you do
• John Bridges: “Gentlemanners Collection”, ISBN: 978-1401601232
• The essential guide to manners and proper behavior for the gentleman to be
• David Deida: “The Way of the Superior Man : A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire”, ISBN: 978-1889762104

Understanding the World

• Stephen Hawking: “A Brief History of Time”, ISBN: 978-0553380163
  • One of the best descriptions of our place in the cosmos
• Richard Dawkins: “The Selfish Gene”, ISBN: 0199291152
  • A beautifully written story about how evolution works
• Richard Dawkins: “The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution”, ISBN: 978-0618619160
• A history of the species that have come before us on this planet
• Carl Sagan: “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark“, ISBN:  0345409469
  • A guide to the explorer of the world. Contains the famous baloney detection kit
• Peter L. Bernstein: “Against the Gods – the Remarkable Story of Risk”, ISBN: 0471295639
  • An easy and accessible introduction to statistics and probability theory

War of the World Models

Whether we are conscious about it or not – we all have it: our model of the world. Inside our heads – our brain, eager for patterns and knowledge, build rules and principles on how the world around us works. For the purpose of this blog entry – let us just call it the “mental model”

Without the mental model, we cannot interpret events. It tells us how to cross the road, which people we like, what we have achieved, how to eat and sleep and it forms the foundation of our values and inner beliefs about what is true. It does not take much imagining to picture how this simulation system helps tremendously on our survival and evolution.

I know it has become fancy to disregard absolute truth. Today’s rhetoric allows stating your personal truth – no facts supporting it - as a viable argument. Even the very idea of facts and the existence of them is contested in some circles. But this is dangerous thinking.

The fact remains, each of us build a mental model that allows us to make decisions – even the simple, everyday ones. What makes a good model of the world? In my perspective – a good model is a model that makes true predictions (that can be validated by others) and which support happiness of myself and others.

Wikipedia has a nice entry about scientific models of the world. Under the section on evaluation of a models we find this fascinating sentence:

“A model is evaluated first and foremost by its consistency to empirical data; any model inconsistent with reproducible observations must be modified or rejected”

A lot is said here – and not all applies to our somewhat more fuzzy “real life” mental model. But one thing in particular strikes me as true, even for mental models: A model should be consistent with empirical data. This is where things get really interesting…

What do YOU do when you discover that your mental model does not match your experiences? When your idea of what another person is like does not match that persons behavior. When you realize that you are not as good at your job as you think. Or if you just discovered that people don’t act as nice and friendly as you believe is the nature of humans. Or what about discovering that he political view you hold to be true simply leads to human suffering. We all carry beliefs about the world – many which are simply not confirmed by facts (if they were, they would have been knowledge – not beliefs).

Recently (as my previous post probably indicates) I have observed that my model does not serve me as well as I would like. My first reaction was to flee from this fact – I tried to reject empirical observation. I am very poor at doing this, it makes me feel sulky and breaks my integrity.  The next step my brain took was to use my old mental model to make predictions that are simply not true – or at least have no basis in observation. Is it just me – or does anyone else run strange “worst case” simulations in their head when they lack enough information to guess what other people are thinking?

I know I do!… If there is one thing that drives me up the wall, it is silence and lack of communication – my own and other’s. My brain is so good at obtaining new information that the lack of it drives my frontal lobes crazy with simulating the future. The worst part of it: I KNOW this happens – but yet I cannot help spending time thinking about these guesses (for guesses are what they are) about what other people think about me or how the world “should” be. I have certainly got better at suppressing, even defeating it – but it is not gone yet. Who is really in the drivers seat in my mind here?

When I realize that guessing leads nowhere and just wastes time – I go into denial. This normally includes fleeing into the (nicely predictable) world of computer games, getting drunk or just hanging out with friends that talk about something different. Of course, this has absolutely no effect on the mental model being inconsistent – it just drives the fear of facing it even deeper into the subconscious mind. The final step of this denial is apathy – where I no longer can motivate myself to think. Not only do I loose the ability to think about the inconsistent mental model – I cant think about anything complex at all. This is when it starts affecting my work and my close friends – and this is when I need to take action.

The behavior just described comes naturally, almost instinctively, to me. And I am beginning to understand how religious people remain believers – in spite of the world not living up to their “model”. The silence from the world is where jealousy and stress comes from. The continued unwillingness to admit that you are wrong is where bad science and strange beliefs comes from – it is our way of fleeing into another world. The denial, and the dissonance following it, is how you become an addict  and how some people end up depressed or too filled with apathy and self hatred to treat others well.

I am gaining a much deeper appreciation about what it means to be brave – to boldly admit to yourself that you are WRONG and need to change parts of your mental model. While there is comfort in fleeing, simulating and denying – it is short lived and amoral to others. Eventually – holding on to a broken world view will destroy your integrity, leaving you untrustworthy. There is no shame in admitting defeat – but our tiny little brains just don’t like to loose. Staying brave when looking in the mirror is our only defense against ourselves and civilization.