Purpose, Process and Perspective (with Rob)

Rob Grave is a great friend I met at university. We had a chat...

Trev: 

A few years back I was lazying on the couch when my curly haired house buddy kept coming back from a run. I had recently moved to London and so had been using the excuse of finding something indoors to do to keep active. Rob wasn't one for excuses and so would head out whatever the weather. It was harder to carry on plopping on the couch when his royal buzzy energiness came back so obviously feeling good. I didn't overcome my aversion to the cold, but I did sign up at the yoga centre down the road. A life changing decision.

Rob:

A great decision indeed. To acknowledge something equally positive from you during that time - it didn't escape my attention how much reading you did, and how your thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. Is there any similarity between yoga, running, and reading? For me, these all generate joy in a person for a number of reasons. At their simplest, they are something to do and can drive away boredom (a deep fear of mine). But look harder and they all serve to fulfil multiple goals, including fitness, friendship, and learning. I think working towards a purpose is a key to happiness.

Trev:

Purpose is important, along with process. The end and the means. My reading habit actually came shortly before the yoga started, so perhaps there was a connection. My late twenties were a challenging time. I had realised how dependent everything I thought was on luck of the draw. Where I was born. Who I came across. Reading was a way of taking more of an active part in choosing the paths. The head, the heart, and the body are not separate. If you aren't fit, you don't think straight and you don't feel great. And relationships suffer.

Rob:

We are very lucky. Here we are working on the last block of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and at this very moment there is a refugee crisis on the front page, with people struggling for safety, food and shelter. Can our theme of the head, heart and body connection, be expanded to a connection between ourselves and other people? The system is probably bigger than we think. In the same way that improving fitness can improve our mood and mind, I think that any development to the less "lucky" parts of the system could, like a rising tide, uplift the whole.

Lucky

Trev:

It is probably the single biggest take away from the time I have spent studying 'happiness and learning' - Perspective. Most of the people I know are already happy. We have niggles we are working on, but we always will. Widening the lense has an incredible ability to deepen the meaning. There are billions of people living in extreme, absolute poverty. People pushed out of their homes by war. Realising that working on their happiness is working on our happiness is very similar to realising that just sitting on a couch reading is going to solidify you into a blob. Even if the book is amazing. You have to get up and move.

Rob:

Spot on. The action, the "doing", that's what this is all about. A realisation on this came to me during a recent daydream around the Homo Naledi discovery. My thoughts were that in our primitive selves, the person who worked the hardest or the smartest was the one who got access to water, was safe at night, hunted or grew the best food, and basically survived and continued the species. In my head, I could equate modern day work to our primitive survival efforts, and it made me feel very positive about going to work as a deep connection to the species.

Trev:

The world we knew also wasn't abstract. Water, Safety, Food, Warmth are all very tangible, visceral, in your face measures of happiness that require immediate attention. As we move up Maslow's hierarchy we get to more fuzzy, relative measures of happiness. It becomes more a case of comparing how we use our time to the other ways we could have. In the mean time, we also disconnect from those at the bottom still building the base of their pyramid. Those moments of connection, to the species, to the environment, make me worry less about the relative happiness of my particular bundle of bones. The question becomes what to do about it.

Rob:

So now we're getting to a point where we agree that doing something, like running or yoga (the process) is good and builds happiness. We're also agreed that connecting with and improving the lot of those around us is also good. This leads me to the difficult conclusion that the ultimate purpose is therefore to be a social worker? Didn't the Dalai Lama once simply put that, "The Purpose of life is to help others". This jars with the capitalist inside me that wants to become rich and famous. What am I missing? How can the two goals become one?

Trev:

Social Workers are real champions. We sit debating the finer aspects but with aligned goals. The harder stuff can't be solved with cheque books or philosophy. Even wealthy places with a strong pyramid base have beggars and mental health challenges. Those are hard problems requiring all of us to work on our emotional intelligence. When ideas clash, the one that matters to us more ends up winning. Then we make up reasons to justify it. I think the only way to not 'miss stuff' is to build in time to step back. To get perspective. Must be why the Dalai Lama lives in the mountains.

Rob:

I think you've just established a third reason why running and yoga are so good at building joy. It's because they often provide a moment of calm when the noise of the day is forgotten and some perspective can be gained. And funnily enough, the closer to nature you do any of these activities, the better this perspective gets which is why people have yoga retreats in the Alps, and do trail runs here on table mountain. Purpose, process and perspective. These runs are punctuation marks in the essay of life which help to give it meaning.

Table Mountain Perspective

Guest Post by Rob Grave

• Smile and Go Seek

Tick Tock

Most of our thinking is done in comparison. Something isn't dark. It's darker. It's not light. It's lighter. We look at new things in light of old things and discovering is fun. The surprise of being different from what we expect can delight us. There is so much we don't know that constantly looking for experiences that expand our choices can be a wonderful incentive.

Without change, we can become accustomed to almost anything. Your 50th night in first class on a plane is not the same as your first night. At that point you realise that your bed at home is better than the bed in first class. Airlines charge more for something being less horrible. Closer to what you get on the ground. Think how delightful getting a clay mug on a plane would be and then look how many you have in your cupboard. A real, actual, metal spoon. Luxury. You tell the kids of today, and they won't believe you.

One implication of this is that happiness can actually come from making things simpler most of the time. Making things less pleasurable. Not horrible, but unremarkable. Then occasionally do something amazing. Our minds are largely just a bunch of memories. Memories come from stories. Stories are mostly about highlights, and the way they end. Daniel Kahneman calls this 'Duration Neglect' and tells of experiments where patients talk about the pain of procedures. Their memory is not of the average pain. They remember the worst point and the last point. 

One story I like to think of in terms of managing going back to things we like (but not often enough that we get used to them) and experiencing new things comes from Intel. Moore's Law is the idea that that chips will get faster and smaller at a consistent rate (doubling every two years). This comes from the number of transistors and the microarchitecture. Intel alternates which one they focus on. Every tick represents a "Shrinking", and every tock represents a "Redesign". This has helped them keep up with the incredible increase in power of computers. I can still remember my first black and white family computer. We used to smash the hell out of the left and right arrow keys playing a game based on the Seoul Olympics. Games are a tad more advanced today. You tell the kids of today, and they won't believe you.

Moore's Law - Wgsimon

I like 'Tick/Tock' for a few things. I try follow Joshua Foer's advice from 'Moonwalking With Einstein' to go back to books that I have read before. Tick. To savour the ideas in them. The same way someone who is religious savours verses in their Holy Book. If an idea is really profound, you need to chew on it. Not just taste it. Then I will try new books. Tock. I read more than one book at a time, and what I read depends on my mood, but the idea normally applies to which books get added to the pile.

Another Tick/Tock philosophy can apply to coffee shops, restaurants, running routes, etc. Ticking and tocking between things that are familiar and things that are new prevents you from getting used to things, and exposes you to new things. The best of both worlds.

Tick Tock

Talkers and Pausers

I read a fair bit. Until about eight years ago, that wasn't true. I was lucky if I could get through one book a year. I wrote about the things that helped me read more in 'Love it, Do it'. One of the things that I do is to read a few books at the same time. That means that when I start getting overloaded with one book, I can switch to another. A friend of mine who is the most prolific reader I know has switched almost completely to Audio books. Other than making answering the question as to whether you have 'read' a book fun, it does make getting through tough books easier. Like watching a movie or having a group conversation, your thoughts can wander and the book carries on. Imagine we watched movies like we read books? If the movie paused every time someone spoke? If the movie could read our mind and paused every time we thought about something else? Painful.

I am sure there are several relationships that have ended because one person is a talker, and the other a pauser.

Anyway, here is what is on my reading list at the moment:

 

They are all in various states of unfinished, but are all likely to be things I comment on here at some stage. The books at the top of my recommended reading list at the moment are:

'The Art of Learning' became an instant favourite and I have read it five times in the last year. I kept coming back to it after Joshua Foer pointed out the value in re-reading your favourites. We now have an infinite library of ideas and thoughts. The temptation can be to fly through them. The idea that an audio book caters to our wandering mind may seem like a cop out. We do it when reading traditionally too. Sometimes we only remember the gist of a book. Sometimes we know we have read it, know we enjoyed it, often recommend it, and yet no longer have any idea what it is about. 'The Art of Learning' is awesome every time.

Books as Art

I have just got a new Kindle - it is great!

The price has come done significantly since the first reader I bought, and having the 3G connection really makes it much more user-friendly to actually get the books to read. You still can't just think of a book and have it 30 seconds later as a number of books aren't available in the right format yet.

But rather than talking about its features, I wanted to go back to what I was writing about in my post 'As Technology Disappears'. Seth Godin is working with Amazon on something called 'The Domino Project'. As a best-selling author, he is moving away from traditional publishing, and will only be printing a limited number of books. In his post entitled 'The joy of collectibles', he talks of how different it is to think about how you would print a book if you were only doing 400 or a thousand (or fifty).

The reading experience on a Kindle is great, but perhaps books (the ones made from trees) will become more of an art form. The covers don't have to have lots of salesy text on them. The paper can be really high quality. They can be designed to last. If you do your reading electronically and then buy the books you really enjoy, it is like cutting back on corner cafe chocolate so that every now and then you eat Swiss.

Exciting times.

Reading other peoples books

I just watched `The Jane Austin Book Club' with my Mom (Christmas time and all). One of the things which my mother has not enjoyed is that whenever she buys me books, they tend to sit on my book shelf.

The problem is, that until 18 months ago, I really didn't read much. I like reading, but I read slowly and not often. When I read, I felt like I had to read things with gravitas. So, it was Charles Dickens or some other book with great literary notoriety. I also had some bad rules.

1) I would always finish a book
2) I would only read one book at a time

I also tended to read exclusively fiction. This put a major dampener on my reading. Particular `break pad' books I can remember were 'Embrace' by Mark Behr, and 'Tender is the Night' by F.Scott Fitzgerald.

I also read very slowly, and for some reason, despite my ability to study for long periods, the same ability did not translate to reading.

`The Satanic Verses' and abuse for my stupidity from the Brothers Torr, led me to break rule number 1. Rule number 2 was broken when I realised how dumb it was. Why do we categorize books as an exclusive activity like that. We watch multiple TV series. Our jobs are filled with numerous parallel tasks. We can have a number of friendships... 'sorry, I can't go for a drink, I am still busy finishing off another friendship.'

That said... I am now managing to read a lot more. That combined with starting this blog, and reading others has really led to a whole other level of creative energy that I feel buzzing all the time. I still read slowly... but am getting faster.

The other thing goes back to my first point... reading books that friends recommend. Now that my 2/3 a year is 20/30, I should really make an effort to read recommendations... well, not reapplying the two rules. If they don't grab you after an honest attempt, put down.

`Jane Austin's Book Club' shows a guy who always read Sci-Fi being included in a Jane Austin only book club... and he gets into it. He recommends to one of the ladies, Ursula Le Guin (author of the wizard of earthsea) who, and I agree, he thinks is awesome.

Even if you enjoy your own beach, strolling over to the other side of the island once in a while is probably a good idea.

I love holidays.

The times they are a changing

So now. My attempt to question and justify what I believe has led to some dramatic (for me) changes in perception in the last while. The next in the firing line is my hoarding nature.

Anyone who knows me fairly well will know that I am a very nostalgic person. I keep lots and lots of things. Here are some of them:

1. A Coke Can Collection I inherited from my brother when I was 8 and he let go at the age of 13. It is 20 years later and I have not yet let go. With a little (lot of) help, my last addition to the collection was in 2002 during the football world cup. The collection is now being stored in Cape Town and I have more than 400 different cans. I am not ready to let this go.
2. I have every card I have ever received, including ones sent to my parents congratulating them on my birth. Cards are slowly going out of fashion, or maybe I am just get older so birthdays are less significant... so their shoe box home has been and will continue to be sufficient.
3. A DVD collection of maybe (I haven't counted) 100 films. I feel this collections days are numbered in the same way my CD collection seems a little obsolete now that they are all on my ipod.
4. Many many photo albums. I love photos. I always took heaps but now don't have a digital camera other than my cellphone and have relied on others. I have a feeling photo albums are also going to become obsolete. I have converted 15 years of films to CD, so I can now throw away the films (for some reason this is one of the hard tasks I am struggling with).
5. I have more than 15 years worth of Sports Illustrateds. I like looking at the old copies and it provides adequate justification for getting the swimsuit edition each year. The days of this collection are numbered however. I can't justify keeping them. My mother happens to do art workshops for children and I think they will get more out of them than me. I don't like the idea of them being cut up... but equally, this is probably the most logical step for me to start the purge on my hoarding nature.
6. What got me thinking about this post was seth godin talking about the Kindle. I have a reasonable collection of books, but no one ever reads them. They are essentially decoration. A friend at university had a `open book policy'. He was the token BA student in my residence and a little different from most, but he had a great eclectic book shelf and was happy to lend books, and happy to borrow. He kept no record of who had what. He figured as long as he had roughly the same number of books as he thought he should, the world was in equilibrium. Nice idea. I feel that I should be giving my books away... it seems they would be doing better in someone elses hands. I should give them to someone with the express instruction that when they are done, they should do the same (with the same instruction). Certain books I am more likely to read again, perhaps I should keep? In honesty, my DVD collection and CD collection are larger than my book collection. I always thought the idea of building up a personal library was a nice one, but the kindle changes that, the kindle is a library the size of a book.
7. I also have a certain collection which only a certain few know about which is probably best kept quiet. Yup, I shouldn't write about it on a public blog... but most of the people likely to read this know about it anyway and it would be conspicuous by not being mentioned. One day when I am a famous artist all will be revealed ;-)
8. Clothes wise, I am at my worst. I was reminded of this when seeing someone recently I hadn't seen in years, and the clothes I was wearing being more recognisable than me! I should and will use this as the first point of my purging.
9. I have journals from since I was 9, all my creative writing from High School, and project from all the way through.
10. My uncle, knowing I like to keep odds and ends made me a very cool `memory box' in which I keep odds and ends. My rule is that if I can't remember the significance of the odds or ends, they have to go.

I should probably start with the CDs from (3), the films (4), the magazines (5), and the clothes (8). I feel kind of justified in keeping the rest.

Stuart argues that we store a lot of our personalities online through blogs and facebook. I imagine he would extend this to the things we own as well. While there are a number of things I have let go of, like religion and (in the process)patriotism, those were largely because of clear obastacles I believe those parts of my personality caused in my search for figuring things out. These other things seems like a part of me that does no one any harm, other than the storage difficulties.

But yes, I admit, it is time for a lot of the clothes to go.