Burning the Candle at Neither End

November 25, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

It’s common in today’s busy society to feel rushed and overloaded. Even when we actually have enough space in our schedules for all that we’re doing, we may still feel that there is too much going on and we’re on the brink of losing control of it all. Maybe we tell ourselves that things will get better when the big project at work gets finished or when the charitable fundraiser that we’re organizing is over. But then we discover that we’re still feeling much the same afterward.

Modern technology has plenty of time-management tools to keep us organized—task planning software, a calendar in the email program, and smartphone reminders of upcoming appointments. Even our plain old sticky notes, pocket-size notepads, and ballpoint pens are much more than our ancestors had before the modern age, back when they wrote with quill pens and wouldn’t have wasted valuable paper and ink on anything that wasn’t going to be kept for years. We have labor-saving devices they could only imagine in their dreams. So why do we feel as if we are, to borrow a phrase from a simpler era, burning the candle at both ends?

Yes, many of us are in fact busy at work and in our family lives. But a large part of that overwhelmed feeling, I suspect, is that our well-organized schedules have created a social environment where we feel obliged to account for every minute. Although our modern-day jobs can’t reasonably be compared to the hard physical labor necessary for survival in the small villages of the past, our schedules are far more regimented.

A farmer in olden times might have risen at dawn, trudged out through the snow to milk the cows, and then moved on to the next chore. No scheduling reminders were needed because the chores stayed about the same from one day to another, with slow seasonal changes, and didn’t have to be completed at an exact time. By contrast, today’s workers get up when the alarm buzzes and spend most days checking off the tasks on carefully planned lists. This is a much subtler pressure than a peasant farmer’s need for a good harvest to avoid starving over the winter; but it is pressure nonetheless, and it should not be ignored.

Because our social environment is the main cause of our rushed and overloaded feelings, just making a few small changes in what we experience every day can go a long way toward dispelling those feelings. For example, my husband recently pointed out that I had been making myself feel more rushed by keeping a notepad on my desk to jot down my work hours before entering them into the timesheet software. Although the notepad was useful, the drawer would be a much better place for it, to keep it out of sight so it wouldn’t be a constant visual representation of having to track my hours.

I took his advice and moved the notepad to the drawer. Then I bought a small battery-operated flameless candle to keep on my desk instead. When turned on, it flickers like a real candle and brightens my work area on dreary days. And because it never burns down, the candle provides a strong symbolic representation of having plenty of time.

desk candle

When we get busy with work and other responsibilities, it’s easy to forget how many choices are always open to us regarding the little details of our environment. Asserting our personal power doesn’t necessarily require drastic changes in our lives. Simple acts can be enough to feel much more in control—clearing away clutter, buying or handcrafting a few decorative items, and organizing one’s personal space more comfortably. Such things may not seem like they amount to much, but given time they can bring about a significant shift in perception.

Breaking the Ice: Barriers

November 20, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Stories

An extremely thick window, several times the strength of bulletproof, separated the exobiology laboratory from the curving corridor that led to it… [This is Part 10. Continue reading this installment, or read the story from the beginning.]

Empathy in Development

November 8, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

I came across the phrase “empathy in development” while reading an article by nonprofit leader Molly Melching entitled To change society, first change minds. Although the article is mainly about efforts to achieve sustainable development and social change in Africa, the author’s wise observations can be applied much more generally to the process of bringing about systemic change. She describes empathy in development as involving four key elements, as set out below:

First, begin with human rights — empower people to claim their rights to health and well-being with confidence. Two, start where people are — have empathy and respect while you understand their history, their language and culture and their priorities. Three, do not try to force change — lay the groundwork for dialogue, introduce people to ideas, identify shared values and allow them to decide what the change will be and when they will make it. If you start by just fighting what they are doing, you’re going to get resistance. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, remember the solutions already exist within the communities with which you work.

I believe these insights are equally valuable in the context of bringing about social change in one’s own country. It’s not just those working abroad who need to take a respectful approach when dealing with differences of culture and perspective. Especially in today’s rancorous political climate, it has become all too easy to dismiss other points of view. When we treat our own beliefs as obvious facts, then surely there must be something wrong with anyone who disagrees. Maybe they’re ignorant, corrupt, lazy, immoral, or otherwise deficient in some way. Wholly oblivious to the irony, we may claim they lack empathy or suffer from black-and-white thinking. After all, there’s got to be some reason why they aren’t behaving like sensible people.

How we respond to others’ differences is itself culturally determined in many ways. Even when we see ourselves as respectful and open-minded, we may not be fully aware of the underlying narratives that frame our worldviews. In any society, the words commonly used to express an idea tend to shape how people think about that idea. I’m not just referring to political buzzwords aimed at provoking emotional responses. On a much more basic level, our vocabulary reflects the structure of our society, whether or not there is any conscious intent involved. As we go through life, we routinely make assumptions and take actions based on this familiar structure.

In modern-day Western culture, development connotes a distinction between the complete and the incomplete. Nations are either developed (suggesting a past-tense, finished process) or developing (they’re not yet like us, but they’re working on it). Although today’s development narrative avoids the obvious biases of language used in the past to describe other cultures, such as “backward” and “savage,” it still describes a linear scale that puts us at the top, with others striving to reach our level. It further suggests that development should proceed along the same trajectory, rather than having many possible paths.

A similar dichotomy can be found in the language our culture uses to describe individual development. People are seen as either normal (that is, fully and properly developed) or struggling to overcome their challenges (not like the normal folks, but trying to be). And of course, it goes much deeper than just choosing one word over another. Changing an occasional word or phrase doesn’t do much if the underlying narrative stays the same. Our language is full of terms that started out as politically correct euphemisms and ended up being used as insults, just like the words they replaced.

I believe this cultural framework is a large part of why empathy in development can be so hard to attain, whether we’re aiming to change other nations or to change the behavior of people within our own society. As soon as we decide they need to be changed, we subconsciously start to think of ourselves as superior. We’re developed, they’re not. We’re normal, they’re not. We’re enlightened, they’re not. So naturally we should tell them what to do, since we know and they don’t. Eventually they’ll come to understand it was for their own good…

This mindset has become so ingrained in our culture that sometimes we’re not even aware of it. Thoughtful reminders such as Molly Melching’s four principles of empathy in development are much needed. And I suggest another point on which reflection would be helpful: Remember that we, ourselves, are still developing. There is nothing shameful about acknowledging this simple fact. The opposite of development is not perfection—it is stagnation. As we interact with others and explore our world, we continue to learn, both on a collective and an individual level. This necessarily means that when we seek to change others, we are also being changed. So when we find our views in conflict with those of other people and cultures, it may be useful to consider not only how we can change their minds, but also what we can learn from the situation.

Marriage: Some Assembly Required

October 28, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

Even in a time of tremendous cultural flux, when many of the historical reasons for marriage have become outdated, there are still people getting married. One might wonder why, given the advantages of staying single in today’s world. Children are very expensive, unlike in the past when they worked on their parents’ farm. Having a family restricts the career opportunities available to modern parents, both because of the time involved in caring for children and because of the expectation that a responsible parent should bring home a steady paycheck, rather than being free to take chances and follow passions when building a career. Marriage has economic pitfalls even for childless couples, who may not want to pursue promising job opportunities in other cities because it would be hard for the tag-along spouse to find a good position. And there’s always the risk of divorce, which can be messy both emotionally and financially, even when a couple has no children.

Some people simply dismiss the whole idea of marriage as an antiquated relic of primitive times, which continues to exist only because traditional society has conditioned us to want it. But I think those who opt for marriage often do so based on the perception that it is a promise of stability in a rapidly changing world. Even when we don’t feel confident about navigating the huge cultural shifts going on around us, marriage (if all goes well) gives us a constant, predictable home environment. The family unit becomes a micro-culture with its own comforting traditions and rituals.

I recently had a dream that dealt with these themes. Although dream interpretation based on cultural archetypes mostly fell out of fashion along with psychoanalysis a few decades ago, it can sometimes prove interesting. In this particular dream, I was assembling a four-poster bed by putting on the posts. After that, I was on a dock at the river, putting oars in a boat (a double scull) that my husband and I had rowed over the summer.

In dream interpretation, the number four can represent symmetry and stability. Both pairs of oars must be rowed in a synchronized motion to make forward progress along a river, which is a symbol often interpreted to mean the river of life. Losing one’s grip on the oar handles, or bumping an oar into a submerged log or other hazard, can easily cause a scull to tip over—it’s a very narrow boat that needs the oars for balance.

When not in use, oars are stored separately from the boat. They must be put into the oarlocks each time the boat is rowed, and the rowers must carefully check to make sure the oars are fastened securely. This can be seen as an assembly process, much as the four-poster bed in my dream had to be assembled. Both a double scull and a bed are places where a couple would be. So I would interpret the dream as referring to the stability provided by marriage, which requires careful assembly.

Of course, not everyone looks upon marriage as a source of stability. Some take a very different view and consider marriage a luxury reserved for those who already are financially stable. Even though today’s families are much smaller than in the past and women usually work outside the home, raising children in the modern world can be very costly. With so much uncertainty in the global economy, some young adults feel that they should wait until they have well-established careers and substantial savings before they even consider marriage. Depending on the extent of their financial anxiety, they may never reach a point where they feel comfortable with it.

There’s no disputing the fact that it is stressful to get married and start a family while living paycheck to paycheck. But it’s important to keep things in perspective, rather than letting financial anxiety take over one’s life to the extent that everything seems too much of a risk. Way back when our ancestors were raising their families in tiny villages, they had very few material possessions, and their lives were far more perilous than ours. Children often died in infancy, women often died in childbirth, and men often died in war. Still, our ancestors did their best to cope with whatever happened to come their way. Because nothing in their society ever seemed to change much, they didn’t have our worries about living in an unstable world.

Unlike our ancestors, we can’t reasonably expect to lead simple and unchanging lives. Some degree of anxiety about the unknown is inevitable. We deal with it by seeking stability in our relationships, our finances, our daily habits and rituals, and whatever else we may feel gives us more control over our environment. Choices that work well for some people, such as marriage, are not necessarily going to suit others. And with all the options available in today’s society, it may take some time to discover what works and what doesn’t. In any event, when pursuing our goals, I believe it’s helpful to keep in mind both that we have more personal power than we may realize and that, as we go through life, some assembly is required.

Life’s Too Long for Worrying

October 13, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Every culture has its folk sayings that help people to get through their days. We rely on them to give our problems a familiar, manageable feeling. Don’t worry about the small stuff, we’re often told. Life’s too short for that.

Back when our ancestors’ lives were indeed short and perilous, this was a very useful way to remind people not to get overly dramatic about small annoyances or disagreements. Why complain today when you might easily die tomorrow from an outbreak of plague, find yourself in the path of an invading army putting your village to the torch, or get eaten by a hungry lion or bear when you went out to gather firewood?

In today’s more civilized world, however, we are far more likely to die of some lingering old-age ailment than of plague or warfare. Our communities have lost many of the close ties that once came from defending against shared perils. It’s hard to imagine what the future will look like, or how we’ll deal with it. Although modern-day humans no longer have to worry about our children dying of smallpox or being captured by an enemy raiding party and sold as slaves, there’s plenty of space in our minds for lesser anxieties to take up residence. Workplace worries, family spats, and political disputes get blown way out of proportion. Perhaps we try to tell ourselves life’s too short for that—but it isn’t. Not anymore.

The primitive parts of our brains still are hard-wired to be on the lookout for anything that might want to eat us. Far below the level of conscious thought, we search for patterns in whatever surrounds us. If it doesn’t all fit neatly together into something recognizable, then we get anxious. Mix that primitive reaction with the massive complexity of today’s society, and it’s no wonder modern humans have sky-high stress levels. Subconsciously, we feel as if there might be unseen predators crouching nearby at any moment, poised to spring. Because we know there really aren’t any, we find other ways to explain our fears. Maybe that lurking enemy becomes our neighbor who votes for a different political party.

How can we convince ourselves that these anxieties are just small stuff and that we’re not in fact on the brink of catastrophe? “Life is short” doesn’t seem to be useful advice in the context of reassuring ourselves that there are no monsters under society’s bed. Such advice might instead make us worry more because it reinforces the subconscious feeling that we could get killed at any moment by something we never even saw coming.

The main challenge for modern humans is learning to deal with change and complexity. So I believe we could use a new folk saying to suit today’s circumstances: Life’s too long for worrying. When we get hung up on our grudges and fears, we might easily wake up one morning 40 years later and realize how much time and energy we wasted obsessing about small problems that could have been solved long ago, if we hadn’t convinced ourselves they were gigantic obstacles.

Although the complexity of our world may often leave us feeling anxious, it also gives us many opportunities to make positive changes. We have a vast array of choices that were unimaginable even a generation ago, and we’ll have exponentially more choices as time passes and technology continues to improve. Having so many options may cause us to feel overwhelmed; but because we have such long lives, we can accomplish very ambitious goals without doing everything at once. All it really takes is finding one way to do something constructive each day. Over time the small changes add up, and we discover that we’ve created far more than we might have imagined.

Breaking the Ice: Shade

September 22, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Stories

The red rubber kickball raised puffs of dust when it came rolling toward home plate on a hot, dry afternoon in early September, 2009… [This is Part 9. Continue reading this installment, or read the story from the beginning.]

Trading Time for Money

September 2, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

We all have different perspectives on managing our money. One common approach to curbing wasteful spending is to think about each purchase in relation to the work done to earn it. Before buying an expensive new gadget or a trendy pair of shoes, a person first stops to reflect on how many hours of work were needed to earn that much money.

While this may be an effective way to break a bad habit of impulse buying, I believe it creates more problems in the long term by conditioning the subconscious mind both to see work in a negative light and to see scarcity rather than abundance. When we measure everything in small increments of time and money, weighing one against the other, we’re left feeling as if we never have enough of either.

Psychologists doing research in this area have found that when people look upon their work in terms of how much they’re paid by the hour, they are more likely to feel that they don’t have time to get everything done in their personal lives. Business owners and salaried professionals actually spend more time at work than hourly employees, on average; but they often feel that they have more free time.

Some of that is because they have enough money to buy their way out of time-consuming chores, such as by hiring a maid instead of having to clean the house themselves. However, I’m inclined to think that much of it really is just a matter of belief. Because business owners look upon their work in terms of challenges and accomplishments, rather than hours, their work doesn’t feel like it deprives them of personal time.

In contrast, when people avoid making impulsive purchases by reminding themselves how many hours of work they did to earn the money, this necessarily implies their job took time away from other things they would rather have been doing. Too much of that attitude builds a wage-slave mentality in which work is seen as a misery to be endured for the required number of hours, all for the sake of buying one’s carefully rationed rewards when each paycheck arrives.

One of the reasons wealthy people don’t think like that is because wages are not their only source of income. Maybe they’re working 60 or 70 hours a week to build up the business, but they have investment accounts earning a good return. They probably also have a substantial amount of equity in real estate and other assets. So when they go out and buy things, the cost is only a small percentage of their total wealth. They don’t see it as chunks of time sucked out of their lives in exchange for wages.

Most of us aren’t wealthy enough to make withdrawals from investment accounts and go on shopping sprees whenever we feel like it. We need to put reasonable constraints on our buying habits, while going about it in a way that won’t leave us feeling deprived of time, money, material goods, or some combination thereof.

I believe the key word in that last sentence is “habits.” We live in a very complicated society, and we navigate its complexities every day by relying on whatever routines we’ve developed. When these routines become unproductive or harmful, then they need to be modified by substituting another habit that works better.

We’re all familiar with the need to change our routines in the context of managing our weight. Those of us who have full-time sedentary jobs can’t eat as much as when we were teenagers, unless we want to spend large amounts of time at the gym. Many people avoid eating too much by reminding themselves of how many hours they’ll have to run on the treadmill to make up for all the calories in that fried chicken and biscuits. This is exactly the same trade-off that is often used to curb impulse buying—time vs. overeating, time vs. overspending, measured in calories and cash respectively.

I’ve found that a more effective way to avoid gluttony (of both the food variety and the consumer goods variety) has been to replace an overindulgent habit with a moderate one. It’s basically an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. I don’t often think about eating fried chicken and biscuits since I started regularly buying baked chicken and salad instead. If a particular store or website seems like it’s getting too much of my money, I change my routine so that I’m not visiting it.

And on the time side of the equation, I don’t force myself to do workouts that I dislike. There are plenty of ways to get exercise that are more fun and are just as effective. If a workout routine is so unpleasant that the thought of doing more of it stops a person from overeating, then the person isn’t likely to be motivated to do enough to get results. Same goes for jobs. Anyone who feels stuck 40 hours a week doing a crummy job probably isn’t performing well enough to earn much money there. It makes more sense to change jobs. Granted, the economy isn’t at its best right now; but as time passes, more opportunities come along.

Although it may sometimes feel like a struggle to control time, spending, and food, this doesn’t mean we should obsess about rationing them. Looking at it from another perspective, we have an unlimited supply of time because there is always more of it as long as we’re alive. As time goes by, there are plenty of things we can do with it. What’s needed is to choose wisely from among the vast possibilities available in today’s world, picking those that are well suited to form enjoyable, lasting habits.

Breaking the Ice: Abduction

August 27, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Stories

“Careful, don’t scare it away with any quick moves,” Peter Marchenko said, leaning over the console. The warning wasn’t needed… [This is Part 8. Continue reading this installment, or read the story from the beginning.]

Breaking the Ice: Crevasse

August 17, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Stories

From orbit, Europa gleamed pure white like a flawless pearl. That illusion was broken, as Mark Woods knew it would be, when the landing craft descended… [This is Part 7. Continue reading this installment, or read the story from the beginning.]

Celebrities and Friends

July 29, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

When I enjoy a free or low-cost ebook, I’ll often write a review. I consider it a way of showing appreciation for the author’s time, effort, and willingness to share creative energy with the world. It’s chiefly meant as encouragement, like posting a comment on a thoughtful blog entry or giving feedback to a friend in a writers’ group.

Conversely, when a book doesn’t suit me at all, I move on to something else without reviewing it. Everyone has different tastes, and I have better things to do with my time than complain. Besides, it strikes me as mean-spirited to post a review saying that a book sucks, even if that is my honest opinion. It’s not like commenting on a shoddy product where a company has been deliberately cutting corners to save money. Authors of ebooks usually aren’t weighing cost-benefit considerations when they dream up their stories. They’re just ordinary people.

And when I read a book by a celebrity author, I generally don’t feel motivated to write a review. Not even if I believe it’s a great book, recommend it to someone I know, or buy it as a gift. That’s because I put celebrity authors in the category of businesspeople selling a commercial product, rather than online acquaintances creating stories for the pleasure of sharing them. As such, my encouragement isn’t needed.

For the past century or so, we’ve had an entertainment industry whose business model has been to create glamorous stars for the masses’ adoration. They’ve made it such an ingrained part of our culture that it seems like the natural way of things. We expect to see tabloids full of celebrity gossip in the grocery checkout line. Most of us take for granted that a career in the creative arts is only available to a lucky few, and that for everyone else it’s just a daydream. When our kids say that they want to be actors, novelists, or singers, we tell them it might be a fun hobby, but they’d better keep up their math and science grades because they’ll have to get a real job.

Of course, today’s technology-driven society really does need a lot of engineers, and I am not suggesting we shouldn’t inform our young people of that fact. On the contrary, I’m very much in favor of programs that encourage high school students to take a rigorous schedule of math and science courses in preparation for careers such as engineering and nursing, which are facing major labor shortages in the near future. That’s wise public policy in a world of rapidly falling birthrates and increasingly specialized jobs. But at the same time, our technological advances have created more space for artistic pursuits than we ever had before.

In the early days of our celebrity culture, real physical constraints made it impracticable for any significant number of people to pursue creative careers. We still had a mostly agrarian society, and manufacturing was low-tech and labor intensive. Most people had to be farmers or factory workers because the economy didn’t generate enough surplus production to support more than a few entertainers. Also, the low level of technology meant that films, printed books, and vinyl records were expensive to produce and distribute.

What a difference a century makes. Today’s cheap technology and the Internet have made it possible for anyone to create indie movies, songs, and books. Although our culture still has its celebrities and all the hype that goes along with them, I expect that paradigm will fade quickly as we move toward a decentralized entertainment industry. The corporate winners will be companies like Amazon that provide a low-cost platform for individuals to market their creative works.

While indie artists won’t make millions or have paparazzi following them around, there is enough money in today’s economy that they should be able to earn a respectable living, while also enjoying a close relationship with audiences who look upon them as friends.

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