Broken

Occasionally, I refer to myself as "broken", but I don't mean it in the severe way most people seem to perceive it. My mental image is not like a shattered vase, impossible to repair or, even if it were, full of holes and obvious glue lines. It's more like a bruise - a bit damaged, though not too severe, and quite capable of healing.

I think we're all a little bit damaged like that. Nobody's perfect, and nobody gets through life without scars. That's just how it goes. It's nothing to be ashamed of, nor, quite often, anything to even worry about. It's part of the process we all go through to learn how to live. It is my particular scars that make me unique.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Of course, to deal with other people's issues, I need to be at least aware of my own issues.
PPS - Preferably, I'd deal with them completely in that case.

Unreliable autopilot brain

When I'm on "autopilot", I have terrible spatial awareness. This is bad, because I tend to stumble through my physical environment on autopilot when I'm exhausted, such as when I've just woken up in the dark hours of the early morning, or when I've just come home from the gym. Last night, just home from the gym, I felt like I was crashing into the walls, barely balancing as I rounded the laundry basket and coffee table and basically hit Deb in the face as she was looking in the fridge. What I need, when I'm in that tired mode, is an autopilot that reliably steers me around obstacles and keeps me from flinging a rogue hand into walls, furniture and people. Instead, it seems, as with most things in life, that you can only have it if you don't need it. When I'm most exhausted, what I need is to engage more fully with my environment, expanding my awareness and amping up my alertness to its fullest extent. When I have energy to spare and plenty of light, then I can switch off and coast. That's like only driving to conserve fuel when you have plenty, and then flooring it when the fuel light comes on.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Sometimes my mind frustrates me.
PPS - And that's getting kind of meta.

Two kinds of habits

Building a habit of quitting is much harder than building a positive habit. When I talk about a positive habit, I'm talking about, for instance, doing pushups every morning when you wake up. It's a definite action. When you wake up, you do some pushups, then you know you're done. Even if you do it later in the day, that's a kind of success.

To quit something is a much more empty kind of act. Say you're quitting smoking. Today, you throw out your cigarettes and don't buy more, but the victory is when, every single time the urge to smoke rises up, you do nothing. Then tomorrow, when you want to smoke, you do nothing. You continue doing nothing until, hopefully, eventually, the urge to smoke doesn't come up again, and "not smoking" is no longer a goal or a victory but your default state of being. There are certainly rewards to quitting something destructive like that, but they're less tangible and more long-term than the satisfaction and reward of doing something positive.

Perhaps that's something to consider. Instead of aiming just to quit something, you should aim to take up something positive instead, like the pushups. Maybe, eventually, you will associate the same triggers with an urge to do some pushups instead of an urge to smoke. I'd like to see that clinical trial.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm sure it's been done.
PPS - It seems to be common enough advice, anyway.

Too tired for your mental health

Like muscles that are overtired and can't work properly any more, good mental habits can be undone by mental stress or overwork. Those "good mental habits" might be anything you've learned in your lifetime, such as "not having panic dreams about being naked in school just before a test you haven't studied for" or "not slipping into bottomless depression for no reason".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The funny thing is, sometimes you don't know you have these good mental habits until they disappear.
PPS - And then you don't know how to get them back.

Fallibility

Nobody can do no wrong. Your heroes are fallible human beings who make mistakes, overlook things, and sometimes hold problematic opinions. They tell lies, they dislike some things you love, they love some things you hate. They say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. They get into accidents, sweep things under the rug, would rather not discuss certain topics. They run out of energy, get sick, get injured. Sometimes their bodies don't work properly, sometimes their minds don't work quite right. They forget, they remember incorrectly and they will occasionally deceive themselves.

It's easy to forget, when you only interact with them one-way, from their public persona and appearances to your perception and mental image of them, but if you weren't familiar with their work, you could sit next to them on the bus and never know how much they mean to the world.

They are people, and people are fragile, complex, emotional, intellectual beings with faults and failures as big as their strengths and successes. Try to remember that.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You probably won't remember it all the time.
PPS - I certainly don't.

Can we convince trolls that it's not funny?

How do you change someone's mind that trolling is funny? We all go through this stage, it seems, when we aim to get a rise out of people online (or in person) because we find it funny, because at some time during puberty we turn into gaping a-holes spewing poop at the world - just coating it in our stinking, festering monkey-poop - and lauging at people who get upset that we have covered them in our poop. Then some time later we realise that, when we did that, we were being gaping a-holes who didn't deserve the free room, board and internet we got from our parents and we settle down.

Is there a way we can train kids early on not to be that particular kind of a-hole to each other? Is there something we can say to them to indicate that the descriptor "clever insult" doesn't apply to the phrase "you should shut up and kill yourself"? I hope so. The internet gives our words vast reach and permanence, so when you're an a-hole in person, it can be damaging, but when you're an a-hole online, it can be so devastating that people do kill themselves.

So, pre-pubescent trolls, listen up: when you aim to make someone upset online, I'm going to need you to explain to yourself, first, why it's hilarious. You need to go far deeper than "It just is, because now they're angry, so shut up". You're angry, too. That's most of the reason you're smearing your own feces on the internet.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - If you can explain why it's funny, it still has to be something you'd be happy for your parents to read.
PPS - I'm well aware that this post, on its own, won't change any troll's mind.

Domestic training

I used to take some offense at the idea of women "training" their men. It sounds so degrading, like teaching a pet a new trick. It puts the woman in charge and the man in a subservient role, and it's not truly enjoyable for either person. It's not a partnership at that point, but more of a matriarchal dictatorship. Neither side is supposed to be "in charge" of a healthy relationship.

However, I do recognise that many men grow up with terrible domestic habits. We leave wet towels on the floor, we don't cook or clean or tidy up, things like that. These are habits and behaviours that we should have grown out of, but if a boy has his mother picking up after him all of his life, it won't even occur to him that towels should go anywhere else. Why would it? Don't count on self-awareness and consideration developing naturally. We do need to be told things sometimes. If you pick up after a man and wait for the guilt to set in after self-reflection, you'll never get what you want. If you ramp-up the consequences of inconsiderate actions ("Put his wet towels under his pillow!") then you will grow to see your man as a child. I think the better move is to talk about it. It's still training, in a way, but respectful.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Also remember: nobody is the perfect partner.
PPS - Not even you.

Motivation is BS

I recognise that a lot of people find exercise "too hard". They "can't get motivated" to do it. I've had people ask how I find the motivation to get up and go for a run. You want the real, honest-to-goodness answer?

I don't.

I'm not motivated to run like that. I don't have some magical inner coach urging me to get up and at 'em, that reaches down through my laziness and bad moods and pulls me up by my collar to get myself moving. That's the secret. I frequently don't *want* to go, but how effective should that really be as a method of stopping me? If someone put up a little sign at the foot of your bed that said "I don't want you to go running", would that stop you? That's what your lack of motivation is: a little sign somewhere in your world that doesn't want you to go and do anything, and the only reason it's standing in your way is that you are sitting there paying attention to it.

Next time, try this: set a time to get some exercise. When that time comes, stop what you're doing and go exercise. When your "lack of motivation" comes up, picture that little sign and ask why it should have any power over you at all, then go exercise, because you are the only reason you aren't getting over your own lack of motivation. When you need groceries, you go get them. When you need fuel in your car, you go get it. When you need water, you go and get it. When you need exercise, just go and get it. Motivation is not in your way.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - "But how do I get exercise with this little sign here?"
PPS - You ignore it. That's how.

Designing houses through living in configurable spaces

I think it would be an interesting experiment to put a family or a group of people into one big warehouse space with movable walls plus power and plumbing easily moved around and just see how the space ends up being configured over time. Do you end up with separate bedrooms for everyone as far away from each other as possible? Does everyone tend to get their own living space, or are we happy with one to share? Would people try really unusual things like a single washbasin in a bedroom instead of a full ensuite?

It would all depend on the type of people you put in the space, of course. Fiercely individual people would probably end up in more of an apartment setup, with everything self-contained. Families might use more space than they expect. Single people might find themselves happy with relatively small living spaces and lots of storage.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I guess I've been thinking about living spaces lately.
PPS - My interests come and go in waves.

The internet is confronting

The internet brought together all people, whether they wanted to be together or not. It challenged old racist and sexist stereotypes by having actual, accidental contact between awful people and the people they despised or misunderstood. By this process, it raised the hackles of those awful people, and their first-generation response is to unionise their awfulness, banding together to reinforce their old ideas to each other and convince themselves that the world is wrong, not them.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't think that will be the response forever, though.
PPS - I mean, I hope so.

How to fall in love

I read an article about a scientific formula for falling in love, and it got me thinking. Basically it's a guided discussion comprising 36 "get to know you" type questions, followed by 4 minutes of constant eye contact. What I wondered was how much of this you could sort of weaponise and deploy against an unsuspecting person if they weren't playing along. Several of the questions ask for each partner to share something in turn, such as a positive observation about their partner, which you might not be able to do to a person who wasn't knowingly participating, and the uninterrupted eye contact would be hard to pull off on someone unsuspecting. Still, some parts could definitely work.

The catch is that this isn't designed to elicit one-way affection. The method is designed to pull two people close in mutual affection, so attempting to use this as a way to just get laid will only work if you're a psychopath.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'll be trying this my wife for Valentine's Day.
PPS - I might let you know how it goes.

Mental health

We talk about mental health and mental illness quite often these days. Is it taking the metaphor too far to say we should practise good mental nutrition and get plenty of mental exercise? Well, whether or not it stretches the metaphor, I think the mental equivalent of eating junk food and sitting still all day is bound to catch up with you, one way or another.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Probably not with a serious mental illness, though.
PPS - Just mental laziness.

Positive speaking

I have a theory that how we talk about situations, objects and people to each other and to ourselves affects the way we perceive those things. For instance, if you constantly refer to your phone as "this stupid thing", you're not going to develop a healthy relationship with it, are you? You'll be less patient with it and more eager to rid yourself of it, because it's not "my beautiful new phone" any more, just "this stupid thing". It's much easier to attach more negative epithets to "this stupid thing" even than to "my phone". "This stupid thing" can easily turn into "this stupid, slow, ugly thing" and retain those associations for a long time.

I'm not sure what the process of cause and effect is, and it could easily be that the negative associations latch on and cause the insulting name rather than the name causing negative associations, but the point when you assign a negative name must come with some baggage, one way or another.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do try not to do this myself.
PPS - It's harder than you think, sometimes.

You can't take it with you

When people stopped believing in any kind of afterlife, the saying "You can't take it with you when you go" stopped meaning anything. If you don't believe you've got anywhere to go after death, then who cares if you can't take it with you? You don't need it when you're dead, you need it now, when you're alive, and who cares if you die with a lot of stuff or a little? In that mindset, it matters that you have had a comfortable life, not that there's no eternal safe-deposit box for your stuff when you snuff it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Which is not what I personally believe, but I do follow the logic.
PPS - It's a difference of assumptions.

Quitting anything will bring cravings

I can't say that I've ever had to quit smoking or drinking, having never done either of those things at all, let alone enough to be addicted. I am aware, however, that a lot of people approach the Big Quit by looking for an external force that's going to make it happen, whether that's hypnotherapy, acupuncture, the patch, nicotine gum or inhalers to "handle the cravings". And before I get going, I need to stress again that I literally have no first-hand experience with how intense those cravings can be. Still, here it goes.

There are going to be cravings. Lots of them, strong, hard and frequent. That's how you know you're getting over an addiction. The craving is a withdrawal symptom, and you're not going to be able to quit without getting them. What you need to do, however, is to recognise, anticipate and accept that these cravings will happen, and let them pass without satisfying them. Then do it again and again, as long as they come, for the rest of your life, because that's what quitting means.

By all means, get support, call people, talk to your doctor, read about it, substitute better behaviours, but for goodness' sake, don't keep taking in exactly as much nicotine as before. You don't expect someone who has "quit drinking" to take a little nip every now and then to get over their cravings, do you? If you quit sugar you don't have a little chocolate now and then just to keep the edge off. If you quit, then you quit. Don't half-ass this. It's your life and you're going to be the one making the change.

"But," you say, "it's really hard!" Yes. Yes it is. Of course it is. If it weren't, then they wouldn't bother putting the addictive stuff into cigarettes in the first place, and there wouldn't be a whole industry also built around helping you quit smoking, would there? If it were easy, you'd just decide to quit and then there'd be no step 2. So prepare yourself for a hard job and stick to it.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - And if losing weight were easy, we'd have an epidemic of skinniness on our hands.
PPS - Which would be very strange.

High school

When you're in high school, everything feels momentous and important. Then, the second you walk out of those gates for good, all of it - every single event, team, fight, hookup, embarrassment - completely ceases to matter for the rest of your life. This is beginning to be very common knowledge among adults, but it's hard to grasp when you're there for yourself because, as mentioned, it feels like you are in the middle of the most important time of your life. And you are, but not in the way you think at the time.

It feels like this relationship will go on forever and will matter to you with the burning intensity of a thousand suns for the rest of eternity. Then three months later you're at university and nothing could be further from your mind than your childish hookups. You get a "C" instead of a "B" in your class, which drags down your entire GPA and it is SO IMPORTANT, until it just isn't. Or she says he says she says you did and EVERYONE KNOWS and OH MY GOD IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD but then it isn't. Because the most important thing that happens in high school is that you develop a personality. You wait until the hormonal fire in your brain settles down to a gentle three-alarm blaze and if you actually overcame obstacles, you'll be a decent human being. If, on the other hand, high school felt so easy that it was like barrelling down an oiled waterslide giving high-fives on both sides and crashing into a pool of non-stop bikini chocolate-wrestling, real life is going to kick you in the guts straight away when you graduate.

You can climb the social ladder in high school all you like. When you get out, though, the world tips that ladder upside down, shakes you all off and says that, if you don't like it, you'd better fight back. The only people who succeed and never outgrow high school are politicians, and I'm not sure "politics" really counts as "success".

Mokalus of Borg

PS - My own high school journey is kind of a blur in my memory.
PPS - Mostly I think it was frustrating.

Too hard

I try not to say something is "too hard". I always mentally correct that to just "hard", because "too hard", to me, means "I quit". Some things really are "too hard", though. The whole class of computing problems called "NP-Hard" are kind of one-directional, and, with sufficient size, they are too hard to solve before the universe will collapse into heat death. There are physical tasks that can't be accomplished because sufficient force would destroy the components, which makes them too hard as well. In general, though, I try not to apply the label "too hard" to something just because it is a huge challenge or because it is beyond my current abilities. Those things are hard, but they are still possible. That's what I mean.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Stop me if I ever say "too hard" when I mean "very hard".
PPS - Also, I consider this a case of language pedantry rather than positive thinking.

Getting better or worse

Is the world getting better or worse or is it possible that more good and bad things are all being brought to our attention, and we pay mind to what we think the world is already like?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It kind of makes a mockery of both pessimism and optimism.
PPS - And it leaves me wondering what I should make of humanity in general.

Know your assumptions

I like to say that it's important to recognise and state your assumptions up front, because that is the basis of logical thought. If you aren't assuming anything, you aren't speaking logically or rationally. If you don't know what you're assuming, you don't know where your reasoning might fall down. The problem, however, is that it is sometimes very difficult to see what you are assuming when you are making an argument. It's not based on assumptions you consciously place on the table, label "Exhibit A", and refer to as conditional. Your assumptions are quite often subconscious, and you won't necessarily know what they are before you use them.

That doesn't make it less important, just less likely that you will know your assumptions until you go looking for them. You have to question what you believe to be true. When you analyse your own thoughts, you will find yourself at some level saying "Well, of course that's true. Everyone knows that.". That's an assumption, but it might not be the very base level you could get to. Keep digging, and you'll be surprised just how much you've been taking for granted.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - You will, however, assume you are correct in all your beliefs.
PPS - Despite knowing that, in general, you must be wrong about something.

Other people's expertise

When other people estimate the size and difficulty of your job, they will tend to lowball it, because of the Dunning-Kruger effect: when they don't know what you do, they think they're practically an expert. You'll find them saying things like "it shouldn't take long for you", "it's not that big a job", "there's not much to it" or "it can't be that hard". You won't be able to convince them otherwise without teaching them how to do your job, because as long as they can hallucinate that they know better than you, they will assume they have a high level of expertise in your job, regardless of what it is.

Could you write a book? Yeah, of course, you just hit all the keys on the keyboard in the right order and there's your worldwide best-seller. You've got the idea for it already, and all you have to do is write it, which is just mechanical. Could you be a model? Uh, wear clothes and walk? I think I can manage that. Could you be a rock star? All you need is to learn an instrument then roll around in the piles of money, right? Pfft. Simple. Read the news? They tell you what to say!

You get the idea. Just try to remember, before you guess that someone else's job is pretty easy, that you know practically nothing about it, and that destroys your brain's ability to make that judgement.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Estimating your own job tasks can be difficult for different reasons.
PPS - And that's a whole different issue.