Pattern Addicts

When sitting at a roulette table where the option is red or black, and spinning... a series of reds in a row may make the chancer think, “it has got to be black next”. 

But no. This is called the Gambler’s Fallacy, “more frequent in the past means less frequent in the future (or vice versa)”. 

The roulette table has no memory. It is a pure-play live-in-the-moment fanatic. The chance is the same every time. 

This is not something that is natural to us pattern addicts who thrive on story telling. Even trained statisticians are not intuitive statisticians. You bend your heart and mind to accept the rules of chance. Override what seems to be true, to accept randomness. 

Our lives are short, and they may be too short to gather sufficient evidence. When we have enough evidence, it may no longer be relevant, because the driving forces have changed. Significant data mud wrestles with relevant data. 

You can harness randomness to help you make decisions, if you can admit that going right or left doesn’t fundamentally matter. What matters is going. Sometimes waiting for further evidence is just waiting. 

The trick is to overcome the debilitating fear of randomness.

Accepting Randomness

Accepting randomness can provide comfort. It is when something is malicious that it really works me up. When the intention was to specifically make my life worse. That is very seldom the case. 

I like the idea of where people carry a coin to help them make difficult decisions, that are in truth 50/50. No matter how much analysis you do, it is simply a fork in the road, and you pick or get stuck. Once you know most of the advantages and disadvantages, you can’t craft an option that doesn’t have drawbacks. Keep moving. Pulse. 

Admitting the role of randomness is not a weakness. It is a way of accepting that it is not possible to control everything, and as Nightbirde says, “It’s okay”. Create meaning in the movement. 

Read “Fooled by Randomness” and learn about Black Swans. Events that change the story as we know it. 

We like patterns. They are the heart of the stories we tell ourselves. We create narrative arcs to protect us from storms, and make sense. 

Tyler Vignen’s “Spurious Correlations” where we see the number of shark attacks and Nicholas Cage movies have a similar chart... and so Nicholas Cage must cause shark attacks? 

If you do spin a coin, and record the genuinely random results... most people will see a pattern and say it isn’t random. Real randomness has long periods where life just throws heads, heads, heads, heads, heads, heads. That can’t be random! It is. It is random. 

The world is not against you. And it’s alright.

First Listen

“Numbers to leave Numbers. Form to leave Form.” This is the way Josh Waitzkin describes his practice of embodied learning in chess and martial arts. Not caring about money can mean ignoring it. Which in turn lets it control you. Stilling the waves of money anxiety starts with paying attention to the rhythms. It can start with arbitrary rules and effort in areas you do not value. To get to the stage where you are in control, and move freely, there is awkward, uncomfortable, work to do. Get comfortable with discomfort. Many of our expenses have a pattern. We do not spend the same each month, but look at enough months and there tends to be a regular high and low. A range. There are also fixed expenses. Things we know in advance will come monthly or annually. Then there is the noise, the stuff we cannot control. But can plan for through building flexibility. If you get breathing space between the exhalation (spending) and inhalation (income), you can build a buffer for whatever life throws. Then you can build an Engine so you can gradually free yourself from being an earning machine. Increasing your capacity to say Yes, No, or not right now.

The Deep Work

The first read of anything worth understanding is incredibly confusing. Like listening to an audio book in a language that you haven’t learnt. Nothing sinks in. But not nothing. Surrounding yourself in something you don’t understand is exactly what you did for the first few years of your life. We all did. We soaked in different worlds which is why we see alternative realities. But we were all wide eyed and confused. Gradually picking up cues as to what is funny. Reflecting emotions. Recognising patterns. Words that get repeated. Words connected to things we like. Things we don’t like. The power of words. The real power of sentences. The super-power of whole conversations that can be summarised in a knowing look. Whole conversations that can be connected. Anything worth understanding is worth relaxing into the confusion for. We over value people being “naturals”. We over value finding things easy. The good stuff needs you to do the deep work. Doing the deep work needs you to relax.

Words connected to things we like

Dirty Teacup

A good friend of mine loves being micro-managed. He says it means he doesn’t have the pressure of responsibility. He can just do the job to the best of his ability, as he is told, and leave at the end of the day. I hate being managed, policed, or parented. It is all good if I agree, but only without constant saying. An agreed pattern. Rule of law I accept. Like if you see a teacup that needs to go to the sink, and are about to take it, then someone tells you to take it. The stripping of autonomy grates the third of three brothers in me. I crave feedback. I like mentors. I am insatiably curious about where I could be wrong. But at the end of the day I like feeling like I am making decisions. Not over other people. I believe in reciprocity, and not expecting of others what I wouldn’t accept myself. Double Standards are a pet peeve. Consent and empowerment are the foundation of whatever agreements and approaches people prefer in a world with multiple options.

Take your cup to the sink