My Old Blog

About a month ago I made a post about this book I was going to buy about the science of happiness.

Unlike most things that I say I am going to do, I actually did this one and am about 100 pages or so into it.

He makes an interesting analogy about optical illusions and our ability to predict our own happiness.

We largely trust what we see, yet with optical illusions our eyes fool us. That isn’t so much the problem as the fact that even after we know that our eyes are fooling us…..we can’t stop ourselves from seeing it. We’ll be fooled every single time, forever.

Well….it turns out our brain plays its own version of optical illusions with our memories and imagination. And even if we know the rules (which the book outlines) we will still consistently misjudge how we felt about the past, and what we will feel about the future. And like optical illusions, we’ll keep making the mistake even if we know about it.

So….if I will always have limited success at predicting today what actions to take to make my future self happy…..perhaps I should read a book on brainwashing? I’ll hypontize myself into thinking I’m happy. I wonder if that works?

Another point he makes is that there is no such thing as “someone who says they’re happy but actually isn’t; they just don’t realize what happiness really is.” Although it isn’t quite so straightforward, in the new science of happiness, for the most part, if someone reports they are happy, we have to take their word for it…….what other recourse do we have?

If I can just convince myself that I am happy, then it won’t matter so much which poor choices I make with respect to my future happiness. I don’t buy so much the “stupid, but happy” hypothesis anyway. I think if you were to ask those who are described as “stupid, but happy” their response would be, “Really?? I’m stupid for being happy? I think you’ve got it mixed up. Does intelligence then make you sad? If so, what good is being smart?”

More to come on this….after I get around to reading the rest of the book (which I was warned in the preface will not teach me any secrets to being happy).

I don’t usually post anything that could be of actual use, but I ran across this airfare website that beats anything I’ve ever seen.

I haven’t bought anything on it yet, but I love the way it shows you all the places you can go, how much it is, and how much it has been so you can see if the prices are going up or down.

www.farecompare.com

I love this shit. I think I’m addicted. This is a interesting article and I will be reading the book.

I like this quote most, as “the good ol’ days” effect is annoying and false….because these days, my friends, are the good ol’ days:

“Even in a technologically sophisticated society, some people retain the romantic notion that human unhappiness results from the loss of our primal innocence. I think that’s nonsense. Every generation has the illusion that things were easier and better in a simpler past, but the fact is that things are easier and better today than at any time in human history.”

On another note, I love that website (www.edge.org).

I know I haven’t posted anything in two weeks…..which I think is the longest I’ve ever gone since I’ve had the website.

I will get to it in the next few days. I think I’m going to Asheville this weekend. I played a local version of the Amazing Race last weekend (we won).

Can’t really say I do/say/read/know much of interest these days. Since I don’t watch TV, I don’t have the slightest idea about current events, or movies (which makes me very boring). I read all business books and science magazines (which most people aren’t interested in). I do the same shit everyone else does…not that it is bad….just that it is the same, which means I do nothing most of the time, or life maintenance activites, or whatever you want to call it. Most of what I would probably comment on I have promised someone I wouldn’t so I can’t really say anything about that.

I measure most things by personal growth and it has been a strange year or so in that respect. I can’t figure out if I’m better, worse, just realized I was worse than I thought before, or perhaps I am just sure of what I am capable of and not bothered about the rest.

Anywho….its way past my bedtime and I didn’t sleep much last night.

I just wrote an entry called “My greatest talent”, which I am not going to post. As the title suggests, it talks about what I think I am best at. That shouldn’t be something too personal I guess, since there is no shame in being good at most things; however, if you are truly exceptional at something it is just as likely to be a curse as a gift.

It will serve you well in most instances, but since you are great at it you will not be able to turn it off (even though you many need to)……it is just a part of who you are.

Let’s say you’re a good salesman (which I am not). You would be good at making a wide variety of people feel instantly at ease, you would appear trustworthy, and you would likely be entertaining. Those are great gifts.

But if you got along with everyone people could accuse you of being fake, and never taking a stand (since no one could please everyone if they spoke up regularly when they disagreed). If you are in a bad mood or a little apathetic or tired, your signficant other could accuse you of treating your clients better than you treat him/her. If you are lighthearted and entertaining, you could be accused of a lack of seriousness, of making light of everything.

It is also very hard to step away from what you think you are good at…so that you can become chained to your assets even when they are holding you back. Take anyone who played competitive sports in high school/college. Once you become associated with/good at atheletics you are rewarded for it with friends and scholarships and social status. But then you just play sports and neglect other talents which you might also like. Sports nuts are accused of being one dimensional and sometimes it is a valid point. Good looks are the same way…..they can get in the way as much as they are helpful (luckily I don’t have to worry about that one).

Then there are the bad habits which you become good at and can’t get away from. Drinking for example. In college if you are associated with getting blasted out of your mind, then there is pressure to become even better at it. When you aren’t drunk, people ask if maybe you are just hungover from the night before and will go out later. People want to go out with you, it makes you popular and accepted…and so it is hard to stop. The success of your drinking can fail you out of college.

I used to be that way with depression. I thought when I was unhappy that I had some special insight into the world. I wallowed in my bad moods, like I was always on the cusp of some great revelation. To steal Tolstoy’s idea, “Every happy person is alike; every unhappy person is unhappy in their own way.” I thought it made me unique. But I was wrong. I wasn’t unique. I was just unhappy.

It is very strange to see talents that way because everytime I see someone sufficiently “successful” at something I wonder what mad impulses drove them to get there. Nothing comes without a price.

We had a seminar today at work on “change management”. It is a pretty hot topic these days as change is just about the only thing we can count on. “Plan for change” they say in business. Easier said than done.

It is always interesting what I pick out of an hour long talk like that as important. I am something of an accidental expert in change, owing to a decade of living at a different address every six months, never knowing where I’d be next…..constantly leaving behind and starting anew…sometimes so often I couldn’t tell which one I was supposed to be doing.

Change management is about rituals. I think alot of people disregard rituals as remants of a less sophisticated time…but I don’t think so. I have alot of habits that kept me sane during those years when nothing was constant.

Everywhere I went I found a way to exercise immediately. I wrote. I’ve been using writing as a calming habit for years. Oddly, I listen to the same music. I have a certain group of songs that I use to trigger reflection, and “center” myself. I have favorite clothes that I always took with me. I would spend alot of time walking around. I always liked that. I found friends immediately. Sometimes I didn’t even really like them….they just needed to be there. I read…I’ve done that for years. I sleep. Everyone knows that.

The point is that we have these habits that get us through the days, through rough times. “Success is a habit” they say. I say pretty much everything is a habit. If we don’t have them we are bombarded by too many options….too much to process. We get overwhelmed.

Anyway, I was just thinking how many coping mechanisms I have for stress and change. It is not me that internalizes change by force of will. It is those habits that buffer me until I can bear my new situation.

I won the prize for attending the seminar. They gave away a copy of “Who Moved My Cheese” to the person who’d visited the most countries. The next closest was a guy who’d been in the army his whole life.

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Next topic…..I was talking to this guy the other night at a bar and he was struggling with his life and what he wanted to do (which seems to be a common topic these days). And as he talked about all the stuff going on, and there was plenty…..it occurred to me how hard it is to really achieve anything and be satisfied with it.

I’ve read theories, biographies, academic papers, and pop psychology about what it takes to “succeed” in life. Its one of my very favorite topics.

You know what? Its fucking hard to succeed. The best way is to focus on one thing and one thing only…..then get obsessive about it to the point of psychosis….then let it feed on you until you will not accept anything but success. Everything in your life should support that goal.

If you can do that….success will find you. You don’t need to do anything special. You don’t need to be smart, or planful, or charismatic, or well connected. If you can feed your brain that one overriding goal over and over in a sort of self-hypnotism….it happens on its own. Your subconscious wills it into being.

Those last two paragraphs are pretty much the secret to getting everything you want out of life….if you want to re-read it.

The problem….which was this guy’s problem….is that people spread themselves thin. I figure most people can only do one thing really well, as you have to commit to it……if you are talented and determined, you might be able to do two. Three seems almost impossible. You’ll just be average at all of them and spread yourself too thin.

Life is hard though. Things get out of your control. At that point you have to get back to your coping mechanisms….simplify, perform your rituals, focus on what you want most….and perhaps most importantly, which I didn’t mention before: ask for help from friends/family. And most, most, most importantly: Have hope.

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I had another topic, but I’ll get to that later…..

Jason mentioned this article the other day and I finally got around to reading it.

For those without the time to take a look, since it is sort of long, I’ll give you quick summary: 1) Fossil fuels are a finite resource. 2) We will hit a world wide production peak in the next 5 years. 3) Without cheap energy to fuel “progress”….we are fucked.

I have actually read a good bit about the oil production peak, and since I think like a pop economist (which means I pretend to be savvy buy really have no underlying theory on which to base my opinions)…….I really do see this as a crisis the likes of which modern man has never seen.

I am not much for doom and gloom, as we are all still here, despite decades of warnings about acid rain, nuclear holocaust, the extinction of the whales, and dozens of other “the sky is falling” scenarios.

This is one is pretty plausible though…..and I’ll explain why.

1) Fossil fuels are a finite resource: Everyone knows this is true in theory. Oil lies beneath the earth and is created over a long period of time from biomass under certain conditions. If you extract it faster than it is being created…..you eventually you run out. We are attempting to extract in a few hundred years what it has taken the Earth 4 billion years to manufacture.

That’s great, you say….but people are smart and will find new creative ways of extracting and finding oil and we will be good for many, many years to come, right? No. Why?

Because we don’t need to run out for there to be a real crisis.

2) We will hit a world wide production peak in the next 5 years.

What does “production peak” mean? Well…..it means we’ve extracted as much oil in a year worldwide as we are able to. The next year, no matter how hard we work, we will find and extract less oil. 50% of the oil that the Earth contains has been used up and we are on the downward slope to 0%.

What does “production peak” mean to us?

3) Without cheap energy to fuel “progress”….we are fucked.

Everything you do each day to participate in modern life is predicated on the assumption of cheap energy.

You drive a car. That requires gas. You flip a light switch. That requires electricity, which is overwhelmingly generated through burning fossil fuels.

You want to eat? That doesn’t require fossil fuels, but the truck/plane/boat that brought the food to you does. Plumbing…uses electricity. You have furniture? It was manufactured, shipped, and processed using fossil fules.

Modern cities? They require not just energy….but cheap energy as their whole premise would be rendered moot without cars to sit in traffic and tool around town. Retreat to the suburbs? Urban sprawl becomes impossible without cars.

Don’t think you can retreat to your house and sit on the Internet though. How will you buy your food, your computer? They will have to be transported to you from the foreign countries where they are all now made. Distance adds money in transportation costs. The absense of cheap fossil fuels will add to the cost until, potentially, everything not made locally becomes cost prohibitive.

If we go back to most goods being manufactured and grown locally we have essentially regressed to life before the industrial revolution.

Is it all that bad? We’re not running out, we’re just hitting the production peak.

Well…..as we hit the production peak the price of energy will rise as it becomes less available. This price increase gets transferred to the cost of all goods that require energy to produce….which is basically everything.

So as prices rise for even the basic goods people have less money to spend and save in general. This creates a downward spiral of productivity.

But we replace oil? To an extent yes. But what we replace it with will be more costly and require more effort than oil, which will be a drag on production. Oil, despite what oil companies tell you, is relatively easy to get to compare to what you can sell it for. A third of the most profitable companies on the planet are oil companies.

What about wind? Wind energy currently supplies less than 1% of our energy needs, and is not a viable alternative to oil. We’d need so many turbines that there would be no place left for urban sprawl.

Renewable sources? Like biomass? Again, This is like wind…simply not scalable enough. The entire US would have to be turned into a corn field for ethanol. Besides….it takes effort to grow and convert biomass to energy. Fossil fuels have already done this for us. Biomass will never be as easy as fossil fuel. And what about the effort/people to grow the biomass? That is time people previously spent in more productive pursuits.

Hydrogen? This is the funniest to me. There really isn’t any free hydrogen on Earth. It is bound up in other molecules. So we have to make it. How do we make hydrogen? We transfer the energy extracted from burning fossil fuels to loose hydrogen from its current chemical relationship. Hydrogen requires fossil fuels to make.

Nuclear? Actually, this one is probably our best bet. Uranium though is also a finite resource and the technology for a fusion reactor is still far off.

Think about it another way if you like. The world is growing economically. China just passed Japan as the world’s second largest consumer of oil (we are the first). What would happen if there were less oil? Easy…there would be less growth, because all products made require fossil fuels in some form. No matter how you look at it there would a downturn in production if energy prices increase signficantly.

Not a recession, from which we recover, or a depression, which conotates that we are at a low point and will return to previous levels…..a permanent reduction in our ability to produce because one extremely signficant input, energy, has permanently become more difficult to obtain.

But still….we’ll figure it out…find new oil…..use different sources to replace what we’re losing. Life will go on as before? Wrong.

Here’s an analogy: Imagine we are a small nation that finds lots of bags of gold lying around everywhere….very fortunate. We spend the gold and become important. The standard of living in our country is high. We are not lazy though. We spend the gold in productive pursuits and are a great nation. Eventually though the gold runs out.

We look for some more. We find it but even then there is less. We still have our productive pursuits, as we were not sitting idle, but we always financed our productive pursuits with the gold. The gold is gone, and we are finding new ways to finance our productive pursuits, but they are hard to come by so we are not as productive as we once were. It requires extra work without the gold.

Our standard of living falls slightly as we produce less because effort is diverted from our normal productive activities by finding replacements for the gold that we used to take for granted.

Once our standard of living starts to fall, it continues as producing less means there are less earnings, which means we cannot buy, which means there is no demand for our production, which means less jobs, which means less earnings, which creates a circle of downward productivity. It just isn’t as easy as it once was when there were bags of gold lying around everywhere.

We are currently taking all the “easy” energy so to speak. It is already made for us. The future of energy will be harder than taking pre-made bags of gold out of the earth.

Not to depress you….the flipside of the energy predicament is also true. If we found a cheap, limitless, renewable energy source…..we would see a boom the likes of which man has never seen…..which is really what we’ve been seeing for the last 100 years.

I’ll buy someone a beer next time I see them if they will write me something instead of me always writing you something???

I wonder if anyone will take me up on it?

On another note, after dozens of losses, I can now whip 13 year old tail at the online XBOX tennis game I play. I rely too much on the risk shot though.

On another note, I was privy to one of the upper type management meetings today where my bosses got fussed at (not really fussed, but in a way) by their bosses. It is interesting to see them squirm and get frustrated when they are usually the ones putting the pressure on us. It really didn’t feel good to see them get grilled though. I felt a little sorry for them.

The Wayback Machine is an archive of the Internet started in 1996. Everyone knows you can search for anything on the Internet, but we often think that if you “take down” that website or remove that offensive post that it disappears….not so. If it is caught by the Wayback Machine you can reread it forever, long after you realize you were just an ill-informed ignorant jerk.

Here is the archive of my website. Of course, all the content is still on this site since I have already archived my old posts here, but it is interesting nonetheless. I know everyone realizes how quickly the Internet moves, but as a reminder take a look at the orginial Hotmail page or the Netscape Home Page. They look silly.

Also, I read three really interesting articles on happiness, one of my favorite subjects. The first one is about the hedonic set point and our potential ability to reset it. It mentions a few topics that I think about alot: that people are not necessarily hardwired to be happy, that self-hypnotism/auto-suggestion can alter our hedonic set point, and that cognitive dissonance is a way of life for many people. (FYI: The hedonic set point is a person’s baseline level of happiness.)

The second is about people’s tendency to revert back to their hedonic set point regardless of extreme positive or negative events, the importance of social networks to happiness, how increasing GDP isn’t increasing our levels of satisfaction, and how people living in the slums of Calcutta are happier than their counterparts in the US who are not starving and diseased.

The third is a brief interview with a Christian researcher coming out in favor of gay marriage because he says marriages makes people happier and more well adjusted, regardless of sexual orientation. Here is an excerpt:

Science & Spirit: In your studies of happiness, have you found any groups of people who are happier than average?

David Myers: Happiness is about equally available to people of any age, gender, or race. Income increases beyond what

I wrote a post one time about a simple living organization that tries to scale back their lifestyles to something more manageable and…well…simple. I scoffed a bit, and now that I think about it….I’ve done exactly that, on accident.

I rent. I have no upkeep, no maintenance, no utilities to pay. I never cut the grass. The bushes do not need trimming and the gutters never clog.

I have clothes from high school. They don’t fit so well anymore….but I am still wearing them….except the underwear. I try to switch that out every once in a while just for the sake of it.

I have a 20 year old car that is paid for. I don’t maintain it really. I just patch it up enough to keep it getting me back and forth to work. People make fun of it, but I don’t really care.

I eat out every meal, so I don’t have to go to the grocery store. No food to spoil….less trash to take out. I never run out of milk or cereal. I don’t snack in between meals. I never wash the dishes.

I live 10 minutes from work. I send my work clothes to the cleaner to get ironed. All my bills are scheduled to pay automatically online each month.

Today I got the windshield wipers changed on my car and swept the room. That’s the most domestic frou frou I’ve done in a while.

People that are in “management” work longer hours, have more responsibility, and more stress. They also report greater satisfaction with their jobs and lives. I always sort of wondered about that. If they work longer and have more stress then why are they happier with it?

Well, my theory, which is largely backed up by research although I’ve never seen a study specifically on this, is that people enjoy responsibility….despite what they sometimes say. Nietzsche called it the Will to Power, and I don’t mean to be Machiavellian at all (nor did Nietzsche I think), but people enjoy positions where they are able make decisions….where they are able to make a difference…where they matter. It isn’t necessarily negative.

So I wonder would I be happier with my life if I had more stress and responsibility? I’m not sure. I guess the stress and responsibility would have to be in service of something that “made a difference”.

Hmm…I am adamant about learning the tendencies of “most” people since the world is full of them, but I am always careful not to throw myself into that group. The simple life sounds so nice.