Show, don't tell

Two days ago I discovered a magical pill. It doesn’t actually possess any magical properties, but it sure felt like that to me. I had been tired and irritable for the past couple of weeks, felt fatigued after a mere 20 minutes of cognitive activity and had gradually “earlified” (yes, I invented that word in lack of a real one that conveys the same meaning) my bedtime from midnight to 9 pm. I had always considered myself a fairly intelligent and self-disciplined person – clearly something was off.

Having recently made some dietary changes the idea popped into my head that I might be suffering from a vitamin deficiency. (The fact that it took me several weeks to come up with this ingenious deduction is in itself proof of its content.) So I went down to the drugstore and got myself some vitamins. Half an hour later I felt sharp as a razor blade – focused, energetic and well-balanced. (Aren’t these your associations with razor blades? No? Too bad.) I couldn’t believe it: Really? This was all that had been missing, a small yellow pill stuffed with vitamin B? I am convinced that it has increased my IQ at least by 20 points – so which score is the “real me”? None. Or rather – both. Because everything depends on the state you’re in. And this means your physical AND emotional state, which of course are interrelated and feed off of each other. What if people always were in an optimal state? If their hormone and vitamin levels were balanced, their bodies well-exercised, their sleep and eating habits healthy and their emotional and relationship issues dealt with immediately and effectively? Surely they would be more efficient, happier, even more intelligent? So why don’t they teach us that at school? Governments are always bitching about losing money because people don’t take care of themselves properly. (Of course politicians don’t say this openly because they don’t want to alienate voters, but that’s what they mean.) They have to invest in rehab facilities and special clinics, in pensions for burnt-out early-retired men and women, in costly community programs that teach middle-aged citizens about nutrition and exercise because their overweight causes all kinds of negative consequences (and by that I mean detrimental effects on the economy because that’s what governments are mainly interested in).

In theory most of us know that a balanced diet, regular exercise, the processing of emotions instead of their suppression (greetings from Freud), direct and clear communication with others, enough sleep etc. are “what we should do”. But theoretical knowledge unfortunately isn’t very convincing. Or motivating. Here too the golden rule every creative writing course will teach you applies: Show, don’t tell. If there was some kind of magical machine that could put people in specific states just to show them what they feel like it would be much more effective than telling them what they would feel like. Take smoking for example: If a teenager could actually feel the effects of a long term smoking habit (cough, shortness of breath, snoring, pre-aging skin on top of all the nice things they could have bought for the money) for a whole day or even week before taking their first drag, they most likely wouldn’t. The same holds true for my vitamin example: If I had had a first-hand experience of vitamin deficiency and its negative effects on my overall state of mind before – preferably in direct contrast to how much faster and more focused I’d work given a proper vitamin intake – I would have taken great pains to make sure my brain gets all the fodder it needs.

Despite our admittedly stunning ability to anticipate the future (i.e. to plan ahead, to go through ideas and actions in our heads before executing them) we are experiential creatures. We like learning by doing. We’re good at learning by doing because using our sensory channels means taking the short way as opposed to the more sophisticated, but long way – abstraction. Don’t get me wrong, abstraction is great, very useful (otherwise evolution would have gotten rid of it long ago or rather nipped it in the bud so to speak), but the foundation has to be experience. No wonder so many students are frustrated and fed up with learning, high schools are strongholds of abstraction. And so are universities. How much more enjoyable would school and work be if they started off with a lesson in state control and made “Discover it for yourself” their prime principle. Who knows, maybe I’ve found my vocation...

It’s true enough to be useful

I wish I had said that, but I’m quoting Igor Ledochowski, the founder of Conversational Hypnosis (or at least one of its most prominent representatives). This was his reply when asked if an assumption he is basing his work on was true. And he’s got a point, doesn’t he? Every theory we come up with for explaining how the world works is by definition a simplification and thereby distortion of reality (not to mention the fact that the question “what is reality?” can’t be answered unambiguously in the first place!). And this especially applies to psychology and any assumption about the human mind and human nature. Freud postulated that we’re steered by two motivational drivers: sex and death.  Now you might reject this idea, but it was very useful in its time and probably still is for a lot of people because it unchains them from emotional and intellectual patterns that have been imposed upon their lives by society, their families and peers and themselves. The fact that there have been found other motives and needs that can better explain behaviour just means that Freud’s theory is not the most useful truth any more.

I’m not talking about ethics here. I firmly believe that there are absolute truths as to how we should treat other living beings (including ourselves). I’m talking about how we see things and how this in turn influences what we say and do. For example if I think “Money makes the world go round” it does. At least subjectively because I will focus on those aspects of my experience that reinforce this conviction. The good old self-fulfilling prophecy. (And we all distort the crap out of reality, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to bear it. Or do you constantly think of starving babies in Africa and animal testing facilities? No? I didn’t think so.) Now what I have to ask myself is: Is it a useful assumption? Does it make me happy, successful, a good decision-maker? Because if not it’s ripe for the garbage heap. Seriously.  

Whenever I moved house in the past, I started with a nice cleaning and tidying session. I would go through all my stuff and decide: This is still useful or valuable – or not. And of course only take the good stuff with me to the new place. I think we should do the same thing with our mental stuff.

One of the major obstacles to changing habits is, well, that they’re habits. They’re like the clothes we wear – you don’t just change your style overnight. So here’s my suggestion: If you make changing your style a habit you get rid of that problem, don’t you? Literally doing that would be too costly, of course. And taking the point too far. But you can try the mental version of it – go through your closet of assumptions about the world, of problem-solving strategies (yelling at the broken computer is one of those garbage candidates) and other simplifying glasses you use regularly and ask yourself for each one: Is it useful? Does it make the world look brighter instead of duller? And then start making this tidying up a habit. How do you do that? It’s easy, just think back to how your nasty habit of xyz began, chewing nails for example. Studying for a test? Getting anxious? Distractedly putting a finger in your mouth just so that you could bite on something real instead of trying to crack open that intellectual nut? And here we go – a habit is formed. Now apply the same formula in order to form the mental closet habit. Too complicated? No problem – good old forcing yourself to do it over and over again will do the trick, too. Promise.

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A. Half
B. One third
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2. On what building can one find a giant neon weather station?
A. Canada Life Building
B. National Trust Tower
C. First Canadian Place

3. How many languages are estimated to be spoken throughout the city?
A. 50+
B. 100+
C. 200+

4. Which one of these movie stars was not born in the city of Toronto?
A. Christopher Plummer
B. Mia Kirshner
C. Jim Carrey

5. The CN Tower held its record of the world's tallest building for 34 years, until the Burj Khalifa and Canton Tower were built. It now remains the tallest free-standing structure in:
A. North America
B. the Americas
C. the Western Hemisphere

6. A serious ____ occurred in 1995. It was the worst day in Toronto history.
A. Subway crash
B. Fire
C. Storm

7. What do Bloor Street, Danforth Avenue and McCowan Road have in common?
A. They are all the same street
B. They run diagonal
C. They all run west-east

8. In 2006, City Hall told which group of people to leave and never come back?
A. Charlie's Angels
B. Guardian Angels
C. Black Angels

9. Which of these cities is not officially part of the Greater Toronto Area, but is still considered by some as "part of Toronto"?
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B. Hamilton
C. Pickering

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Snippetry

I was just doing some stretching and at the same time meditating about “modern times” (yes, admittedly one of my favorite topics - a sign of getting old...?). Being a singer/songwriter myself I often find my thoughts wandering into the realms of art. This time a vivid memory of a circus performance I had seen years ago presented itself to my inner eye: Wrapped in the smells of popcorn, rubber, sweat and expectations I was enthralled by what I saw - the seeming limitlessness of what we can do with our bodies and minds. When had I last been so deeply fascinated by a performance?
The internet (namely youtube) offers an endless stream of videos of people doing all kinds of tricks and stunts, but most of them aren’t more than a few minutes long. So that if I do watch them I always feel somehow ... cheated. By the time I’ve gotten into whatever I’m watching it’s already over. And I keep asking myself “What is missing?” The answer is simple: the proper frame. When you go to the circus or a classical concert you take with you a set of expectations (so-called preframes because they predetermine how you’re going to judge the upcoming event) which in turn put you in a certain state of mind (in this example hopefully excitement and the thrill of anticipation). All of this is then enhanced by what you take in through your senses - i.e. the sight of the beautiful concert hall and the dressed-up audience or the smell of the food sold in the circus tent etc. And that’s already half the battle. Because everything you see, think and feel tells you: Forget your life for a bit and let them take you away to a different world. It’s like dreaming - your other mind (the symbolic, unconscious, creative one, some people would say your right hemisphere) takes over, you don’t have to consciously think any more. Two or three hours later the performance is over and you switch the conscious mind back on (the one that’s using language to communicate). If the acrobats or the musicians or the actors have done a good job you probably still feel a bit disconnected from reality, but more connected to your feelings. At least I do.
Now you might ask: And what does all of this have to do with psychology? And what the hell does snippetry mean?? (If you do, you are very nicely supporting my reasoning as you will see in a moment, so read on.) As much as I love cell phones and the internet for the vast array of possibilities to communicate, learn and connect that they offer I am also convinced that they are responsible for the modern disease of hacking everything into small pieces for the sake of saving time maybe or just because we can, who knows. This I call snippetry. (Your assumed impatience would be a direct consequence of the snippetry culture.) And this doesn’t only apply to the arts, but to virtually everything: Conversations are being reduced to a ping pong of text bits consisting of 140 characters, food is inhaled in short 5-minute pit stops to refuel for the next round of busy something-or-other and working out is squeezed into lunch break or banned to summer vacation. By doing this we deprive ourselves of what I would describe as mini-retreats for our conscious mind. Because when we lose ourselves in the joy of eating, cooking, music, the intimacy of an old friendship or simply the rhythm of walking we actually allow our horizon to broaden, our thinking to momentarily turn away from everyday worries and to let in other feelings and images. When we savor food or feel grass wet with dew underneath our feet we reestablish the connection to our bodies; when we let ourselves be drawn into a movie, piece of music or painting we allow the thought that there is more out there than the job we have and the places and people we know to enter our minds and maybe spark the desire to venture out of the confines of our familiar surroundings, both physically and emotionally. It doesn’t work without the proper frames, though. So make sure snippetry doesn’t destroy them.