umNatha yeMemori

Ngexesha elide ndasebenza nomhlobo wam uLister, ukwakha uluhlu lwamagama aqhelekileyo kwisiXhosa. Ndandiyifunde incwadi ebizwa ngokuba yi-Fluent Forever ephakamisa indlela yokufunda ulwimi. Ibonisa ukuba kunokuba ufunde ngokuguqulela, ufunda ngokwakha iwebhu yezinkumbulo. Abantwana bafunda ulwimi lwabo lonina ngale ndlela. Abanalo olunye ulwimi oluya kuguqulela. Bona izinto kwaye emva kokuva isandi ngokuphindaphindiweyo, kuvuza. Xa bebona umthi, bacinga ngokuzenzekelayo igama. Akunomthi kuphela, kodwa neengcambu, amaqabunga, ilanga, ihlobo, intwasahlobo, imvelo. Iwebhu yezinkumbulo. I-Fluent Forever ibonisa ukwakha loo web ukususela ekuqaleni kolwimi olutsha.

Pay Attention

If we lived in an artificial world designed by a computer that gave us more of what we wanted, based on what we pay attention to, we may have a problem. People slow down when there are car accidents. Does this mean we want more car accidents? The stories we share are based on highlights and lowlights. We remember things that stand out - funny, violent, loud, colourful, sexy. We do live in that artificial world. The computer is our mind. It gives us more of what we pay attention to. Most of the stories that matter are very ordinary. Average. Shared. Common. Pay attention to the things that matter.

Seeing Your Potential (Sediqa)

We all have those friends on the periphery of our circles. Friends of friends who come up so often, we have no idea why we aren't friends, or haven't had much contact. Fictitiously, let's call them the Beremy Jortz of the world. One of my Beremies has been Sediqa. Fortunately, my friend Stu persisted (for 5 years) in trying to convince me that Twitter wasn't just an sms to the world. I have made some great friends through Twitter, and some of this involves 'following friends of friends'. That would be weird in the real world. I imagine all sorts of Black Scorpions and Jumping Jortz getting very intermingled. Clearly we are better off in a world where we maintain our private spaces. Interesting people tend to hang out with interesting people. 6 degrees later and everyone is interesting. Sediqa doesn't use her real name on Twitter, so I won't provide a link unless she does... We wouldn't want you meeting or anything. If you did, you'd be lucky. She's awesome, and I am jealous of Stu for having her as a real life friend.

I clearly have nothing in common with Beremy... except friends

Seeing Your Potential
by Sediqa Khatieb

A few weeks ago Trevor asked me to write a blog post on "Happiness". This is what I've come up with. 

I've spent the last 9 months hustling.

Hustling, a word I use to describe doggedly chasing down my dreams and aspirations. To continue undeterred, even when you've been rejected a dozen time. To overcome self-doubt and relentlessly pursue your idea of happiness.

I am hell-bent on making 2015 the best year ever. To do this, to ensure that 2015 would be the most memorable year of my life, I had to set BIG, SCARY goals. Most of these goals involved running.

I fell in love with running in my late twenties. It wasn't an instantaneous love affair. I did not tie my shoelaces, pound the streets for 5 measly minutes and think, "This is great! This is how I'd love to spend EVERY weekend. I'd love to leave parties early just to ensure that I have a good night's rest before a race. I'd love to spend hours on the net, researching how best to fuel my body." Running was tough in the beginning. It still is.

But I persevered. And I developed a deep appreciation and respect for my body. I marvelled at how strong I've become. Hills that first represented a major obstacle were now scaled with ease. And I watched as the minutes on the stopwatch changed. I was crossing the finish line in less time. There was solid, visceral evidence that I was getting faster, better. All the hard work, all the sacrifices, all those early morning runs were paying off. And I couldn't help by wonder, "What else am I capable of?"

So I set myself some big, scary running goals. And I chased after them. Doggedly. And every time I achieve a goal I say, "I think you can do better. I think you're capable of more." And it's nice. It's nice to see your potential.

Sid... seeing something

Saying a Little Less

Daniel Kahneman asks the question of whether we go on holidays for the memories or for the experience? If you knew at the end of your two week holiday all the memories would be erased and you would wake up feeling completely refreshed, would you take it? What would you do? Quite often we charge around trying to fit as much as we can in during our breaks. The same is true for weekends. You arrive back shattered. But it is worth it, because you have precious memories.

Thinking Slow

Memories get weaved into the stories of our lives. They are conversation starters. They give colour and flavour. Since many people only get a limited number of days break, breaks aren't in fact breaks. They are the point. The holiday becomes the thing you look forward to. It isn't just the two weeks. It is the anticipation and it is the tales that get built.

I didn't bring my camera with me today as I am wandering around Lisbon so you aren't going to get any photos today other than one of Mr Kahneman (Thanks Wikipedia). You also only get a short post as it is a ridiculously awesome day and I am in good company. Lisbon is gorgeous and I am deep soaking in its flavours with lots of thoughts bubbling away... so there will still be tales to savour.

But for now I am going to think slow and say less.

Trigger Happy

Memories are triggered. The reason I don't think we are going to outsource our memories to Google is that there is a big difference between consciously taking the time to look something up, and instant recognition. Three wonderful books which look at how our memory works are 'Tricks of the Mind', 'Fluent Forever' and 'Moonwalking with Einstein'. These books should be standard reading for every teenager. The tricks would both inspire them and save them a lot of study time. Well, it may lead them to study more because the ideas suggested are fun. They all talk about how awesome our minds are at recognising things that matter to us - using links. The more something matters, the more links there are. Knowing this and creating links is fun because you link things to likely triggers. Rude, Sexy, Funny, Colourful images provide the best triggers. Coming up with them requires creativity which becomes a habit.

The mind is ruthlessly efficient at cleaning out stuff that is 'unimportant'. If you have changed jobs a few times, you may berate yourself when you realise you can't remember the name of an ex-colleague you used to spend lots of time with. The reason time is so useful at healing even the most traumatic of situations is that slowly we create other triggers and eventually the trauma disappears from our thoughts. That is good. Less good is when things that do matter get 'spring-cleaned' because you aren't paying attention to them. Despite the belief that we were going to be working 3 hour weeks by now, most of the people I know are incredibly busy. Once work and immediate family responsibilities are addressed, even if there is some time left - there often isn't any energy left, and there aren't any triggers. People can go months and years without seeing or talking to people that really matter to them. It isn't because these people are unimportant - they just aren't in focus. Slowly there are fewer and fewer triggers that bring them to mind. I wrote about the idea of checklists in 'Order vs Spice'. It feels weird though having a checklist of when last you engaged with people that matter, or did things that matter to you. It is a little too structured.

An alternative way may be to take a hint from the memory kings. They suggest learning lists of things to create triggers. For example, you may learn a list of all the albums of a musician you like. You may learn a list of artists. A list of vegetables. Whatever. The point is that if you recognise something, the mind doesn't ignore it. It automatically goes to the connections. Think of when you learn a 'new' word, and then coincidentally starting hearing it really often. Instead of a checklist, you may try to link the important people in your life to situations or things you know you are going to encounter. In fact, by using the memory tricks, many of these mentalists don't bother with checklists anymore because they are so fixed in their heads. They are constantly looking for triggers and so they live life more consciously.

One of the challenges with being busy, particularly if it is routine that is repeated, is once you know what you are doing autopilot can takeover. If there is one thing that makes time fly, it is not being present.

Don't kill time.

Chokers and Mind Tricks

Robin Hanson takes an interesting look at the human tendency to choke when do important mental tasks.

I particularly enjoyed the last bit...

I first overcame my fear of public speaking by thinking the audience was beneath me, and my fear of asking women out by thinking they were not as far above me as I had previously thought.

The more I have been reading about the way our minds work the more I realize how much power we have to do things like this. Make up a story that allows us to have a particular emotional response, then repeat it to yourself enough till you believe it.

It sounds like you are trying to deceive yourself, but if so many of our memories are made up anyway, it seems like our minds do this by themselves automatically. So why not? Some people are good at this. Some aren't.

I am the kind of person who has always wanted to be hypnotized, but I am so very conscious of not pretending that no matter how much of an exhibitionist I am... I have never been able to participate in those shows because at some stage I would have to admit that I was awake and rejoin the audience. Then, I would have to sit and watch as those participating got to rescue pretty girls in the audience who were 'in distress'.

There are probably far more things about ourselves... even the most basic fundamental characteristics that if we really wanted to change, we could.

But... it needs mind tricks.

If your house were burning...

The age old question of what you would take if your house was burning down (besides your loved ones) takes a new twist when the standard answer of photo albums goes away.

If all your music, books, and photos are stored online. If you no longer carry a wallet because your finger print and retinal scan let you buy what you like, and are sufficient to identify you. As all your records of memories become digital... the 'materialistic' world starts to melt away...

It also makes you have to worry about crime less, since digital material things can't really be stolen. What do people steal that isn't replaceable when CDs and books etc. disappear?

Plenty of things I guess. Art, jewelery etc. An example that I have always wondered about is the wedding band. You end up having an enormous amount of sentimental attachment to a ridiculously expensive piece of gold (and for the ladies with some diamonds)...

How do you replace that if it gets stolen? And it seems to be the most obvious target, especially when ladies start competing for who has the biggest rock.

Being a sentimental hoarder of mementos, I unfortunately can't claim to be completely released of material things yet. But I did consider today when thinking about online backing up of those 'photo albums' that you would grab as you ran from your burning house...

There are considerably less irreplaceable material things.

Which seems like a good thing.