J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Problem Solving Page 3 of 4

How To Trigger Super-Momentum

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On October 22

In Health/Body-hacking, Life Purpose & Goals, Lifestyle Experiments, Mental Health, Metaprogramming, Problem Solving, Writing

Super-momentum: life in the productivity fast lane

Super-momentum: life in the productivity fast lane

No more than a dozen times in my life, I have experienced a state of what I call “super-momentum.” For days, sometimes weeks at a time, I operated at a extremely high level of energy, excitement, and creativity. I became so absorbed in my work that becoming distracted wasn’t an issue; I was distraction proof. I slept less and ate less, but had more energy. At times ideas came so quickly that I struggled to capture them, getting up in the middle of the night or pulling over in traffic to write them down.

There’s a clinical word that describes aspects of this psychological state: hypomania. But whereas hypomania is often associated with distractibility and thrill-seeking behavior (gambling, shopping sprees, sexual promiscuity, etc.), I associate super-momentum with extreme focus in a single work area, and the application of 100% of the excess energy to the work in question.

There are multiple advantages to having a singular focus. With project immersion, the subconscious mind is always engaged with the material (though other life areas may suffer from lack of attention and processing power). Project progress increases because there is less “loading” time; since the mind is continually engaged, you don’t have to “remember where you were” when you start working. You already know! This also reduces initial resistance/willpower expenditure for starting each work session. Instead of knowing and dreading the mentally strenuous work of reviewing your work for half an hour (or longer) to “get back in the groove,” you just pick up right where you left off the night before. You’re already in the groove — you never left.

Super-momentum is similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s flow, but I consider super-momentum to be more agitated, more based on heightened physiology (dopamine, sex hormones), and less reliably triggered. And while flow is characterized as “enjoyment in the process of the activity,” I would describe super-momentum as an ecstatic, near-frantic, inspired, completely focused work hustle.

It’s a great drug, and I’d like more of it. But it’s not something money can buy.

So, the questions:

  • Is super-momentum worth triggering? Does it actually result in value being created? Or is it just another high to be chased?
  • Is it possible to trigger super-momentum, and if so, how? What circumstances lead to this explosive burst of energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and productivity?
  • Are there negative effects of super-momentum, in terms of psychological strain, physical stress, and general wear-and-tear? Is the comedown painful? Is “project completion letdown” inevitable?

Is Super-Momentum Worth Triggering?

Absolutely yes. While not every period of super-momentum in my own life has paid off in every way, all have paid off in some way. To list just a few examples:

  • I spent weeks in a state of super-momentum writing an artificial life emulation program that took my programming skills to the next level. I still sometimes reference the source code of this application when solving similar problems.
  • For at least a full month I became complete absorbed in Minecraft, sleeping very little and thinking about the game constantly. My brain was so “activated” that I made major breakthroughs on completely unrelated problems (client work) during this period of time.
  • Momu and Grayarea collaborated during a very short window of opportunity. A sixteen-hour work session led to a week of very intense follow-up work, resulting in the track “One” which has generated thousands of dollars in royalty income.

In the long-run, these brief periods of super-momentum are mere blips when compared to productivity and results from consistent daily disciplined work. But still, these blips interest me. Not only are they fun when you’re in them, but many artists and writers I respect and admire seem to be able to consistently generate super-momentum, dramatically increasing their productivity during focused periods of being completely ON.

Is it Possible to Trigger Super-Momentum? If So, How?

Since flow is a possible subset of super-momentum, what have psychologists already determined are the prerequisites for the former?

In order to achieve flow, Csikszentmihalyi lays out the following three conditions:

  1. Goals are clear
  2. Feedback is immediate
  3. A balance between opportunity and capacity (the task is sufficiently challenging but not overwhelmingly difficult)

On most days I can enter a flow state (as characterized here) for at least a few hours. But I don’t know if I can consistently generate the heightened physiological state I associate with super-momentum. As a start, in terms of reverse-engineering, here are the factors (in addition to the above) that I associate with super-momentum:

  • a great idea
  • competition (personal, not abstract)
  • a crush/a muse
  • hunger for success and recognition
  • decent tools and working environment
  • an inflexible deadline
  • powerful collaborators or helpers
  • creating something that will really help or inspire other people
  • breaking new ground (in terms of knowledge, style, or genre)
  • some drugs (modafinil, bromocriptine, caffeine, etc.)
  • being in good physical shape and generally healthy
  • incremental success (power-ups)
  • emotional intensity (including heartbreak, joy, grief, love)
  • working hard, playing hard
  • terrible consequences if I don’t succeed
  • a big payoff if I do succeed
  • getting “amped” because of excitement around an activity or an upcoming event or release (anticipation)
  • extended hyperfocus (for example videogame immersion)
  • an extended period of quiet solitude or near-solitude, time and space to completely relax, decompress, reflect, and even become bored

I have personal experience with all of these factors except for modafinil (which I am curious about, but wary of). Some of these factors are within personal control, but just as many aren’t. Part of super-momentum might simply be utilizing the enormous energy that comes with momentous life events (births, deaths, falling in love, getting dumped, etc.).

Drugs are within one’s personal control, but to me that seems a dangerous route (for example, I could imagine quickly and efficiently writing an absolutely worthless one-thousand page novel under the influence of modafinal).  I once tried bromocriptine (which increases dopamine levels) as an experiment, and  once was enough. I consume a moderate amount of caffeine from dark roast coffee, but medium roasts leave me dehydrated and jittery — I’m not interested in increasing my caffeine intake.

What other factors are controllable?

  •  Setting an ambitious but achievable goal
  • Agreeing to a tight, inflexible deadline, such that other people are depending on you to deliver
  • Choosing subject matter than can potentially have a real impact or break new ground
  • Maintaining and optimizing your infrastructure and work environment so that when inspiration and energy do strike, you are not slowed down with mundane “fixit” tasks and distractions
  • Underscheduling and undercommitting, so that you end up with “empty space” in your life (and not filling that space with distractions like television — get bored enough so that your mind starts racing for its own entertainment — see Oates tweet above)
  • Engaging in a rich social life (ideally centered on or related to your work area) so that you increase your potential exposure to mentors, muses/crushes, rivals, and collaborators, all who can dramatically spur your motivation and amp up your nervous system.

This is the first time I’ve thought about this analytically. I’m surprised by how many super-momentum associated factors are potentially controllable. Maybe super-momentum can be engineered.

Can you Create Your Own Motivation and Excitement?

According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, yes.

“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.

– Neil deGrasse Tyson’s response on Reddit when asked “What can you tell a young man looking for motivation in life itself?”

What Tyson doesn’t explain is how. How do you go from sitting on the couch feeling blah to firing on all cylinders?

Well first, get off the couch. As Tony Robbins likes to say, “emotion is created by motion.” [Tony Robbins “Ultimate Edge — Hour of Power” mp3, link borrowed from this Tim Ferriss post]

Exercise generally stimulates dopaminergic systems, which generally increases motivation (though the neuroscience is complex; higher dopamine in some brain areas increases motivation, while higher dopamine in other brain areas increases awareness of the costs of certain behaviors).

So daily exercise is a must if you want to boost your “get up and go,” with the caveat being that you don’t want to overdo it and end up in a state of chronic inflammation. Lifting heavy weights or going on long runs every day will just exhaust most people. Walking or bicycling or yoga everyday plus short bursts of more intense exercise (sprints, weights) is probably a good balance.

But brisk walks won’t get you to super-momentum. You need to be excited about your work.

Well, what if you aren’t excited? Can this be changed?

Author Rachel Aaron has a good perspective on this. In this blog post she describes how she went from writing 2000 words a day to 10,000 words a day. She breaks her approach into three core requirements:

  1. Time (track productivity and evaluate)
  2. Knowledge (know what you’re writing before you write it)
  3. Enthusiasm (get excited about what you’re writing)

She has valuable insight into all three areas. I’d recommend her post to all writers. But for the more general purposes of this post, her insights into generating enthusiasm are the most relevant. From Aaron’s post:

The answer was head-slappingly obvious. Those days I broke 10k were the days I was writing scenes I’d been dying to write since I planned the book. They were the candy bar scenes, the scenes I wrote all that other stuff to get to. By contrast, my slow days (days where I was struggling to break 5k) corresponded to the scenes I wasn’t that crazy about.

This was a duh moment for me, but it also brought up a troubling new problem. If I had scenes that were boring enough that I didn’t want to write them, then there was no way in hell anyone would want to read them. This was my novel, after all. If I didn’t love it, no one would.

Fortunately, the solution turned out to be, yet again, stupidly simple. Every day, while I was writing out my little description of what I was going to write for the knowledge component of the triangle, I would play the scene through in my mind and try to get excited about it. I’d look for all the cool little hooks, the parts that interested me most, and focus on those since they were obviously what made the scene cool. If I couldn’t find anything to get excited over, then I would change the scene, or get rid of it entirely. I decided then and there that, no matter how useful a scene might be for my plot, boring scenes had no place in my novels.

This applies to all creative/innovative pursuits — not just fiction writing. If it’s boring, why are you working on it? Skip ahead to the good part or the interesting part.

You may need to come back to the “boring bits” of the project later, but if you’re already in a state of super-momentum, you’ll blast through them effortlessly.

Are There Negative Effects of Super-Momentum?

Obviously, being amped up physically and mentally for an extended period of time (even if drug free) is going to take its toll. More free radicals, more stress hormones, and accelerated aging are probably inevitable to some extent.

Super-momentum is not the fountain of youth. It’s burning the candle at both ends. Even if the high is natural, all highs are followed by a low.

In addition to physical and mental stress, focusing all your energy and attention on a single life area means that other parts of your life (household, relationships, children, eating well, sleeping well, other work areas) are going to be temporarily neglected.

In addition, when you come down (and you will eventually come down), you won’t have the energy to energetically deal with these neglected areas. You’ll be drained. After expending an enormous amount of energy and delivering or otherwise completing your project (or possibly abandoning it), you’ll experience letdown. While life coaches and therapists might distinguish physiological depression from post-project depletion, they feel about the same.

The advantage of going through the latter is that you know why (you just pushed yourself like a maniac, and now you’re out of gas), and you know that with rest and recuperation, you’ll bounce back and regain that life spark.

So pursue super-momentum at your own risk. There will be downsides. A near constant state of super-momentum without corresponding periods of rest and recuperation might lead to gigantic leaps in terms of career success, but long-term health life effects might include:

  • obesity, from sleep deprivation and circadian disruption
  • insulin resistance, see above
  • chronic inflammation, manifesting in joint pain, back pain
  • chronic depression
  • drug and alcohol abuse
  • damage to personal relationships, from neglect and/or volatile emotions
  • self-doubt, loss of sense of purpose, “Why am I doing this?”

To these risks you might say “So what?” In the famous words of a super-momentum enthusiast:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

– Hunter S. Thompson

He was a man true to his word.

On the other hand, there are equal or even greater risks to not pushing yourself, to eating and resting too much, to not discovering and stoking your inner fire. These risks are both physical and psychological. Chronic stress is terrible for health, but acute stress is necessary. A sedentary life devoid of all challenges is a fast track to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Consider:

Work “sprints” (via super-momentum) are not necessarily bad for your health as long as you take some downtime to recover. Here are some basic life and health precautions to take if you are chasing the dragon of super-momentum:

  • stay super-hydrated
  • get at least five hours of sleep a night
  • eat at least one healthy meal a day
  • don’t use stimulants stronger than tea or coffee
  • rely on “natural” sources of motivation (see above) instead of drugs (including all so-called “smart drugs”)
  • start with “money in the bank” (literally, but also in terms of relationships, core infrastructure, etc.)
  • take extra care to be polite, patient, respectful, and considerate to your loved ones (your agitated, hypersensitive, hyperactive state will make you prone to snapping and snap judgements)
  • when its time to come down, come down gracefully (sleep more, eat well, decompress, pamper yourself, recuperate, thank everybody who supported you during your sprint, return the favor)

This cautionary tale from author-turned-cocaine-and-videogame-addict Tom Bissell is worth reading. It’s possible to amp yourself up into a state of hypomania and hyperfocus that feels like super-momentum, but moves your life backwards instead of forwards. While I’ve never gotten into recreational drugs, I can relate to the lure of videogames. These days I have a simple rule of “no entertainment during the workday” (including web browsing) that keeps me from falling into false “feeling productive while doing nothing productive” traps.

So Who Wins, The Tortoise or the Hare?

Well, we all know that slow and steady wins the race. There is no substitute for establishing rock-solid daily habits that inch you closer to your goals, day by day.

But there is a place for sprints, for extremes. Especially to reach the heights of artistic or innovative greatness, these sprints might be required.

So the tortoise wins the horizontal race, but the hare gets more air.

Or maybe, once in awhile, the tortoise bursts into a sprint.

Stubborn and Clever Beats Most Problems

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On February 3

In Problem Solving

Friedrich Nietzsche, Temescal hipster

Friedrich Nietzsche, Temescal hipster

How many times are you willing to try solving a problem before you give up?

Human beings are incredibly intelligent, compared to most other animals. We’re used to solving a problem on the first try. We see a problem, a solution leaps into our mind, and we take action. I watch my 5-year-old daughter effortlessly solve problems every day. Electronic tablet on dad’s dresser, out of reach? Get chair. Problem solved.

From a little kid’s perspective, problems are either easy to solve, or impossible. If a solution doesn’t instantly spring to mind (or success doesn’t happen on the first try), most kids will quickly jump to “I can’t do that.” A parent’s job, of course, is to instill the sense of a possible solution in a child’s mind. Try again. Think about it. Try ten times if you need to. Try a different approach. Be stubborn (persistent). Be clever (creative).

Persistence and creative problem solving determine success and life satisfaction to a large extent. But neither come naturally. Almost all children, and most adults, get discouraged and give up after a few tries. Or even a single try.

So how do you teach persistence? And not just persistence, but creative, varied approaches to problem solving? Because it’s not enough to just pound away at a problem with the same inefficient, poorly planned approach. Stubbornness alone won’t get you very far. If you want to your child to have a rich, satisfying adulthood, you want to to encourage both stubbornness and cleverness. Of course, this will make your job as the parent difficult, especially during the teenage years. Who wants a stubborn, wily teenager? Sounds like a nightmare. But those same personality traits may serve them well in adulthood.

Creative Problem Solving — Using All The Tools in the Box

Right now I’ve got a few difficult problems in my life. One family member is recovering from a psychotic episode, and experiencing cognitive difficulties; he is unable to keep track of time, money, and material objects. Another family member has negligible income, has run out of savings, and is recovering from a major illness. These problems are complex and shifting; when they are “solved” they don’t stay solved. At times I feel overwhelmed and frustrated by these “emergencies in slow motion.”

But another, more dispassionate, part of my mind, sees things differently. The problems have more variables, but that doesn’t mean they’re not solvable. If one approach doesn’t yield results, a different strategy might work better. For example, a problem might be approached in one or more of the following ways:

Empiricism: What approaches have worked before, for other families?

Rationalism: Using my ability to reason, what approaches can I imagine that should work?

Subjectivism: How do my own thoughts and attitudes influence the problem (and what exactly am I perceiving as a problem)?

Intuition: What’s my gut feeling about the best way to proceed?

Network analysis: What role is everyone playing, and how do we influence each other, and how can we help each other and improve our communication?

Massive iterations with feedback: Just keep trying stuff, and adjusting behavior based on the results of each failed attempt, until something works.

(I’ve written in detail about each approach in posts such as this one.)

These are just some of the tools we have in our cognitive tool kits. In practice I don’t formally attempt each approach separately. I just keep asking myself questions, trying to trigger new lines of thought.

As a family, we’re supporting each other and doing pretty well. And people are getting the help they need. There are lights at the ends of the tunnels.

How To Teach Persistence and Creative Problem Solving

Stubbornness and cleverness might be genetic. I don’t think there’s anything my parents could have done to not have a stubborn child. But persistence (a more evolved form of stubbornness) can be taught. How? Praising effort, instead of success. Rejecting “I can’t do that.” Emphasizing that 10 or even 100 failed attempts is not embarrassing, but normal. Breaking down problems into smaller, more approachable chunks.

Being a good role model is maybe even more important. How do I approach the problems in my own life? How does the family solve problems together?

The silver lining of any problem is that in facing it we become stronger, more resilient, and more resourceful (both individually and collectively). Not in a “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger” sense (strokes left Nietzche paralyzed on the left side, and much weaker), but in the sense that confronting difficulty is good exercise. We don’t choose what knocks us down, but to some extent we can choose when and how to get up. Often, we may find ourselves better positioned than before.

Silk Road Dreamer — What Would a Less Coercive State Look Like?

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On October 7

In Alternative Economics, Problem Solving, Utopian Speculations

What if the state could only use force to prevent bodily harm?

What if the state could only use force to prevent bodily harm?

I’ve been following the story of Ross Ulbricht and his fallen Silk Road empire. For those of you who have been living in cave, Ross Ulbricht is the alleged mastermind behind the buy-illegal-drugs-online-and-have-them-shipped-to-your-mailbox-in-plain-brown-envelope website Silk Road. Through the use of Bitcoins (an anonymous digital currency, “digital cash”) and TOR (an anonymous internet), Ulbricht earned some US$80M in sales commissions, enabling dealers and clients to directly connect without the hassle and expense of street-level middlemen. Sound like a familiar business model? Amazon.com has done quite well with the same.

Last week the FBI finally caught up with Ulbricht, and the Silk Road is no more. All the Bitcoins have been “seized,” though it remains to be seen if the FBI can decrypt Ulbricht’s Bitcoin wallet, where most of the money resides. Ulbricht’s capture represents the beginning of law enforcement’s struggle with online sales of illegal drugs, not the end. Dozens of alternatives, including Sheep Marketplace, are already up and running.

What interests me most about this story is Ulbricht’s self-professed libertarian ideals. From his LinkedIn profile, Ulbricht writes:

“I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and agression [sic] amongst mankind. Just as slavery has been abolished most everywhere, I believe violence, coercion and all forms of force by one person over another can come to an end. The most widespread and systemic use of force is amongst institutions and governments, so this is my current point of effort.

The best way to change a government is to change the minds of the governed, however. To that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.”

Somewhere along the way Ulbricht lost track of his non-coercive ideals, and hired a hitman to off his former employee. Still, I’d like to take some time to explore Ulbricht’s vision. It’s easy to write off libertarianism entirely as a kind of sophomoric idealism, but the (libertarian) ideal of Freedom is tagged as “sticky” in the forums of American consciousness, and deserves discussion.

So here’s my thought experiment for the day: What would a less coercive form of government look like? What if police and/or the military could legally use force against a citizen only if that citizen was threatening the life of another citizen? In other words, a police officer could not legally pull a gun (or threaten to pull a gun or use any other form of coercion) on a citizen for any of the following offenses: trespassing, theft, tax evasion, non-payment of rent, using drugs, selling drugs, playing loud music/disturbing the peace, drinking alcohol in a public place, growing psychoactive plants, selling raw milk, etc.

And here’s my teaser: I know a place that already operates according to these rules. I’ll reveal the location at the end of the post.

What Keeps People Behaving Well?

Really it comes down to that question, doesn’t it? If the state can only use force to protect life, what’s going to stop people from going nuts, stealing stuff, vandalizing everything, not paying their taxes, etc.?

Most of the answers are fairly obvious, including:

  • Conscience: Non-sociopaths have empathy, and will generally treat other people how they like to be treated
  • Shame: Human beings are quite good at shaming others human beings who don’t follow social convention. Don’t believe me? Go try cutting in line somewhere in the U.S. and see how that works out for you.
  • Path of least resistance: If rules and laws are reasonable, it’s often easier to just follow them, even if nobody is pointing a gun at your head if you don’t.

Some possibly less obvious factors/trends:

  • Information transparency: Which would compel you more to pay your taxes, 1) threat of audit and jail, or 2) every single person who looked at you instantly knowing if you were a tax evader? I think for many people, option 2 would be the stronger motivator, even though it doesn’t involve a gun to your head. Google Glass (or the equivalent) and public tax records could make item 2 a reality, no state coercion necessary.
  • Trust in government: Which would compel you to more to pay your taxes, 1) government spending on citizen spying programs, invading foreign states, and “bailing out” profiteering corporations or 2) healthcare, emergency services, roads, and education for your community? These choices reflect my own personal bias, but my larger point is that government spending that reflects the values of citizens requires less enforcement when it comes to tax collections. Obviously not all citizens have the same values, but in this age of Corporatism, citizen values in general are underrepresented.
  • Less income inequality: Radical income inequality erodes social trust. In South Africa, homes of the upper class are walled off and barred off. As a contrast, in Denmark, this is how they deal with thieves. Yes, the video is kind of a joke, but the point is that in countries with less extreme states of poverty and wealth, there is a less of a need to enforce property rights with coercive and defensive means.

It’s ironic that a social democracy/welfare state like Denmark can put the libertarian ideal of low coercion into practice. I’m not saying the peaceful wooden pony repo actually demonstrates anything, but Denmark does have a good record of preserving citizen freedoms and protecting human rights. Other European social democracies protect the “freedom to roam“; this would be called trespassing in the United States — behavior a cop could arrest you for (and shoot you if you resisted arrest).

So what would actually change if the threat of force were removed in most cases? This wouldn’t mean that everything illegal would suddenly become legal. But it would mean that a cop couldn’t arrest you and drag you off to jail except in the most extreme cases (such as willfully injuring another person, or threatening to do so). What immediate effects would this have on society?

  • Government income from taxation would go down, unless governments could persuade citizens that the money wasn’t being wasted/squandered.
  • With the threat of forced eviction removed, it’s possible that fewer people would be interested in being landlords. With less demand, housing prices might go down.
  • Fewer silly, pointless laws (few people would obey them and even fewer would care).
  • More value might be placed on finding ways to persuade citizens to behave well; “social engineering” via education, nutrition, stable family structures, development of empathy through reading and writing, etc. How do you create a good person that generally behaves well?

A Possible Alternative To State-Sanctioned Coercion: The Citizenship Score

Disclaimer: the following idea is in no way libertarian, though it could potentially result in reaching a libertarian ideal (less use of force by the government, including the use of force to make people pay taxes). In fact, this suggestion veers in the opposite direction, towards that of the ultimate libertarian bogeyman, The Nanny State.

Here’s my idea: instead of using force or threatening to use force against citizens who don’t comply with property, substance, and decency laws (like paying your taxes, not stealing things, not drinking in public, not spray-painting your tag on walls and signs, etc.), implement a citizenship score. Your score would go up for regular compliance with laws, and it would down with violations. You could boost your score by performing community service, and other actions that benefited the public good (like inventing something useful and not patenting it, or publishing works under Creative Commons). Your score would be publicly available.

Corporations already have something like this. It’s called a credit score. It rates the only things corporations care about. That is, do you pay your bills on time?

You could argue that a public citizenship score would be a massive violation of privacy. But arrest records are already public. Why shouldn’t being a good citizen be public? And if a citizenship score could replace state-sanctioned violence against citizens, even libertarians might go for it.

Would the threat of a low citizenship score actually dissuade people from breaking the law? I think it would, if they had any interest in getting a job, dating, making new friends, or any other activity that would require impressing people you didn’t already know, and who might check up on you.

Could it be gamed? Of course it could, just like a credit score can be gamed. I can already see the Tim Ferriss blogpost: “How To Massively Boost Your Citizenship Score In Only Four Hours”. Could it be abused? Probably — there would have to be an appeals process; there would be huge legal and technical overhead and expenses involved in implementing such a system and making sure it was more-or-less fair.

But I still like the idea. I especially like the idea of the state persuading citizens to behave well, rather than using the constant threat of violence for citizens who don’t comply with the law. Consider the following scenario: a teenager is spray-painting on a wall; a cop sees them and tells them to freeze; the teenager panics and runs; the cop catches them and threatens them with the use of deadly force if they resist; the teenager resists; the cop (legally) kills the teenager. Punishment for graffiti = death? This kind of shit really happens. It’s just not civilized. I’m suggesting that the hypothetical graffiti artist should receive a demerit on their citizenship score instead. Nanny state? Yes. Death penalty for street art? No.

We’re nearing a society with 0% privacy. Soon, everything we do will be recorded. If you combine 100% surveillance with 100% coercive law enforcement, you get fascism. But if you combine 100% surveillance with 5% coercive law enforcement (reserving state force for protecting people from bodily harm) then you get what? A Libertarian Nanny State? Whatever you want to call it, it’s better than fascism.

A Functioning Near-Anarchic City

The anarchic ideal is not chaos, but rather a smoothly functioning society that operates without a centralized state threatening to use force against its own citizens to keep them in line.

In Oakland, California, the city I call home, we basically have a functioning anarchy (at least in terms of law enforcement). There are so few police per citizen, and the police are so demoralized, that people can basically do what they want without any fear of law enforcement getting involved.

This is not a good thing. We lead the nation in robberies. In some parts of town people dump their trash in the streets and get away it. It’s hard to find a public object without at least one ugly graffiti tag.

What’s remarkable is that things aren’t worse. Most people are good, and will obey reasonable laws because that’s a sensible thing to do. Huge swaths of the city are attractive, clean, well tended, quiet, and relatively safe. Oakland has huge problems, but it’s remarkable how good things are, considering there is almost zero law enforcement in many parts of the city.

Catch-22

Ross Ulbricht fell into the classic criminal Catch-22; when other criminals don’t play fair, you can’t call the police on them. You have to get your own hands dirty. In order to protect his private property, and avoid going to jail, Ulbricht chose to become the enforcer, and his central ideal went out the window.

I believe violence, coercion and all forms of force by one person over another can come to an end.

Outsourcing the use of force to the state is one of central pillars of society. We allow the police to enforce laws so we don’t have sit at home all day, holding a rifle and guarding our loot. But how far can we roll back this threat of force? With less income inequality and less scarcity, we might eventually abolish (or at least lessen) the need/desire to steal. And with increased surveillance and less privacy, we might be able to use reputation instead of force to motivate behavior.

What do you think?

Rock Bottom May Be Too Late — Do Something!

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On September 5

In Mental Health, Problem Solving

Photo by lunamom58 (Creative Commons License)

Photo by lunamom58 (Creative Commons License)

A commonly heard phrase is that you have to let someone hit “rock bottom” before they will be willing to accept help, seek help for themselves, or make positive life changes.

The problem with “rock bottom” is that for many people, “rock bottom” is death (or in some cases, irreparable harm to health, relationships, and career). Substance abuse, remaining in abusive relationships, mental illness, dementia, gambling addiction, untreated chronic health conditions, and many other life circumstances can lead to a grisly end and premature death. In many cases, an early intervention by family, friends, and/or the state can preserve and improve quality of life for a person for many years.

The “rock bottom” trope is a convenient rationalization for friends and family members who (for many valid reasons) do not want to jump headfirst into the messy, unpredictable, time-consuming, expensive, grueling, no-results-guaranteed process of trying to help someone whose life is going off the rails. I have personally made good use of this rationalization at several points in my life.

I’m in the process of helping out someone I’m close to, who is not in a good way. I’m part of a team helping this person. It’s not the first time. It’s stressful, it takes up time, there are serious opportunity costs, but it’s worth it.

It’s almost always worth it. When you don’t help, when you turn away and cut someone off entirely, you’re killing part of yourself (and not always a small part). This post is about how you can help effectively, and protect (and possibly even enhance) your sanity in the process.

Summary: For friends and family suffering from illness or addiction issues, “rock bottom” can mean death or irreparable harm. It’s better to do something to help, rather than taking a “hands off” approach.

Some General Observations

After struggling for many years with the question of “when, and how much, should I help?”, I’ve come to some of the following conclusions:

  • Some (but not all) forms of “helping” are counterproductive. While it can be an act of kindness to bail out a friend or family member and protect them from harsh consequences, doing so over and over again enables the behavior that is getting them into trouble. This cycle is called codependence. The other extreme is total disengagement: cutting someone off entirely. Some “in-between” alternative are offering support, being part of a support team, and in some cases being part of an intervention.
  • You can’t control other people, and trying to do so leads to anxiety and despair, or abuse/coercion. What you can do is try to persuade them to get help and/or change their behavior, using both soft and hard tactics (intervention).
  • Helping someone has real, tangible costs (time, money, emotional strain), and if you overextend yourself you risk losing your own health, sanity, means of supporting yourself, and important relationships.
  • You may put in a great deal of effort, at great personal cost, and still not succeed in helping someone.
  • Helping someone also has real, tangible benefits (the person might get better, you may feel like you are doing the right/moral thing, other people may consider you to be a good person, or even heroic).
  • You might feel resentful if you overextend yourself. You might feel guilty if you don’t help enough. You might feel both emotions; regardless of how much you help you offer.
  • You have to decide for yourself if you want to get involved, and how much. You may be negatively judged (and even suffer tangible consequences) for your decision to help or not help, depending on the social norms and values of your peers and family. There is no “right” decision; you have to figure it out for yourself.

Nobody is exempt from these decisions. At some point every person will have to make a decision about helping a family member or close friend who is in very poor shape. This is a choice 100% of us face, at some point in our lives.

Summary: There are benefits and costs to helping someone. There is no “right” decision in terms of how much you should help.

Do Something!

There is almost always something you can do to help a person in trouble. Some of the items below may seem “small,” but never underestimate the possible impact of making a “small” gesture to help someone. They may remember the act of kindness for the rest of their lives, and what seems “small” to you might actually be a huge turning point for the person you are helping.

  • Learn about the condition, so you’re not flying blind.
  • Tell the person that you love them and care about them (frequently).
  • Acknowledge that the problem they are facing is difficult, and commend them on any positive steps they take (no matter how small).
  • Research social services and programs that might be available to help the person in question.
  • Let the person know about social services that are available to help them (support groups, treatment programs, healthcare, assisted living, etc.)
  • Encourage the person to take advantage of any support resources that are available.
  • If the person is resistant to accepting help or seeking treatment, keep suggesting it (but don’t threaten or cajole or bully; it needs to be their decision). You might get stonewalled at the first suggestion, and by the fifth they are happy to go along with whatever you suggest.
  • Offer temporary assistance in the form of basic necessities (food, paying utilities, rides, etc.). This kind of helping is not necessarily codependent, especially if the person is in the process of trying to get better. Don’t offer more than you can afford (see below).

Summary: There is always something you can do to help that is within your means and abilities.

Stay Sane

When someone you love is in bad shape, you’re going to have a bad time. There’s no way around it. But there are ways to mitigate the bad feelings, to manage your stress, to preserve your sanity, and to protect your life and well-being. Here are some suggestions:

  • Don’t go it alone. Build (or join) a support team, focused on help the person in trouble. If the people you ask first aren’t willing or able to provide much help, keep expanding the circle until you feel like “we’re in it together.”
  • Don’t put your life on hold. Keep doing the things you love, keep meeting your responsibilities. Never go “all in” trying to help someone; you’ll just quickly deplete yourself and end up needing help yourself.
  • Don’t put yourself in physical danger. Leave dangerous and highly volatile situations to the police. If you feel physically threatened, get out.
  • Don’t expect a quick fix or resolution. The healing (or dying) process can take years. Provide support at a level that you can sustain, and think long-term.
  • Experience and constructively express your own emotions. Don’t bottle it up; talk about it. At the same time, don’t fixate on emotions, or endlessly process your feelings with everyone you encounter to the extent that you become tedious and a downer.
  • Understand and use your stress. Stress is a physical response to 1) provide energy to deal with a situation (adrenaline) and 2) seek emotional support (oxytocin). Acute stress does not have negative health consequences, especially when that stress leads to constructive action. Watch the video below for more information (there are some “association vs. causation” issues, but valuable information nonetheless).

Summary: You’re no use to anyone unless you maintain your own sanity and well-being. It’s not selfish to continue living and enjoying your own life; it’s common sense. Also — stress isn’t necessarily bad for your health.

A Final Thought

Helping someone is not an all-or-nothing question. There is always something you can do to be helpful, something that is within your means and abilities. When someone you love is in trouble, figure out what that thing is, and do it (and keep doing it).

Please feel free to share your own perspectives and experiences below.

The Learning Tax (pay it, instead of working around your ignorance and weaknesses)

By

On May 10

In Creative Work/Career, Metaprogramming, Problem Solving

Learning the Hebrew alphabet, one of my current study areas

Learning the Hebrew alphabet, one of my current study areas

For about a decade, for most of my thirties, I lost touch with active learning.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t learn anything for those ten years. I learned passively, reading nonfiction and news. I had hundreds of fascinating conversations. I worked, and learned by doing (LBD), acquiring new skills by throwing myself into unfamiliar activities (screenplay and novel writing, DJing) and learning on the fly.

Still, my approach to acquiring new skills and knowledge was haphazard. The few times I did dedicate time and resources to active learning yielded large dividends (for example my “DJ bootcamp” experience), but this was the exception, not the rule.

For the most part, I ignored:

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