tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:/feedJeremy Philip Galen2014-09-28T02:30:01-07:00Jeremy Philip Galenhttps://jpg.svbtle.comjeremygalen@gmail.comSvbtle.comtag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/quicktype-ios8-big-deal2014-09-28T02:30:01-07:002014-09-28T02:30:01-07:00QuickType in iOS 8 -- a bigger deal than it might seem at first<p>One could conceivably claim that convenience is the mother of all communication. By “mother” I of course mean a set of other metaphors including but not limited to progenitor, caretaker, instructor, guardian, and then maybe conscience, nudge, antagonist, friend, ally and eventually (in dotage) a responsibility.</p>
<p>According to this claim there must thus be a theoretical point in ancient, pre-recorded time when inconvenience reigned supreme, unchallenged by our fretful attempts at being comfortable. In this hazy era we were likely as haphazard as Lucretius’ “dust motes dancing in the sunlight” – mere atoms in nature. But whenever it was that a creaturely commitment to convenience developed and managed to puncture this regime, forms of communication must have rapidly been born. For how else, could we have set about working well with like-minded members of our species?</p>
<p>After the arrival of formal language systems (the true sea change) the task has fallen upon technology to serve as the catalyst for all the subsequent step changes in the relation between convenience and communication. Given how far we’ve come already and how much we can imagine growing from here, let’s hazard a guess that communication is in that golden period of pre-adolescence, the pre-teenage pause during which, for the most part, mother and child are aligned.</p>
<p>With iOS 8 and the introduction of QuickType Apple is bringing us a meaningful step closer to the tumult of adolescence, that period of continuous change and growing pain, where whimsy rules the day and emotionally charged interactions explode unpredictably.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/jps3fpgt3fwwg.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/jps3fpgt3fwwg_small.png" alt="QT.png"></a> </p>
<p>We’ve grown quite used to AutoCorrect, the robotic system for fixing typos and finishing words as we type them. With QuickType, though, I don’t just have a computer helping me <em>finish</em> the words I type; I now have a computer on hand to help me <em>choose</em> the words. I could easily have an entire conversation merely by continuously selecting one of the three or four words an extremely intelligent machine presents me with. While the result may not be perfect or complete, what communication event ever is?*</p>
<p>AutoCorrect has caused a lot of ink to be spilled because it produces comic misunderstandings through accidental exchanges. QuickType is an intervention and not an aid, but I have yet to read any jeremiads about the damage it is going to do to our unique voices or how it might corrupt the youth. Is this because QuickType is so extremely helpful?</p>
<p>My mind wanders to the role rationality plays in communication. The philosopher Donald Davidson once put it, “rationality is a social trait. only communicators have it.” If convenience starts nudging communication to get better grades and work harder and clean up its room and be on time, what will happen to rationality? Suffice it to say, one of the most exciting parts about adolescence is fantasizing about becoming an adult.</p>
<p>*My first use of QuickType (above) felt like a true shortcut, on par with when I learned something like command + v; and we all know that ease is addictive.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/metrics-and-melancholia2014-04-08T08:37:36-07:002014-04-08T08:37:36-07:00Metrics and Melancholia<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/kbodqbax7ooeha.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/kbodqbax7ooeha_small.png" alt="automatic.png"></a></p>
<p>“Objection to scientific knowledge: this world doesn’t deserve to be known.”<br>
-Cioran</p>
<p>Perhaps the only thing worse than doing something wrong and not knowing about it is doing something wrong and knowing too much about it.</p>
<p>I’m in awe of a new product called <a href="http://www.automatic.com/">Automatic</a> designed to make me a “smarter driver.” More than any other recent promise of digital-personal-metrical accountability, Automatic touches on a behavior I’m convinced I could actually modify. I feel as though what I eat, how many steps I take, how deeply I sleep etc. are all fully deterministic expressions of my genome: how can I possibly use data to peel back layers of historical anxiety compounded by decades of familial and cultural reinforcement?</p>
<p>But my driving style strikes me <em>a priori</em> as something that hasn’t ossified yet. Driving isn’t a dictate of nature, it’s not something I was born doing, I had to learn how to do it. I’ve never had insight into how I drive until now. Now I know the nature and frequency of my sins (hard accels, hard brakes, speeding) and the idea isn’t merely to become better in an abstract sense; if I reform I shall save money on gas. A surfeit of incentives.</p>
<p><strong>I HAVEN’T CHANGED A THING ABOUT HOW I DRIVE</strong></p>
<p>In a way, I think we all yearn for a position of naïveté in certain realms of our lives, probably because knowledge can be rather disappointing. Certain knowledge can even clearly be disempowering, most especially the types of knowledge that promise empowerment.</p>
<p>Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to eat food without a mental model of the Calorie. Wouldn’t it be a more immediate relation to the experience? On balance I’m sure that ubiquitous nutrition labels have improved our lot, but how do we account for the quiet, small personal tragedy created by a willing, fully-informed transgression such as eating something in conscious spite of its caloric content?*</p>
<p>Our era is especially well-designed to lull us into a conviction that two oft-related terms are actually unimpeachably equivalent. The two terms are knowledge and power, and personal data is its most dulcet lullaby.</p>
<p>The dream of personal data is that they inform our steps toward self-actualization and affirm our belief in perfectibility – in other words, the golden road to expiation.</p>
<p>The nightmare: awash in useless data we continuously mistake for significant, we cling to particular points for buoyancy but they are merely flotsam in a sea of sin you can’t do anything about.</p>
<p>*Not all metrics, of course, are malevolent. Consider the iPhone’s battery consumption indicator, which you can change from qualitative to quantitative display with a simple toggle in your settings. Damn it’s empowering to know a percentage in this case.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/tyranny-of-miscommunication2014-01-12T11:42:08-08:002014-01-12T11:42:08-08:00On the Tyranny of Miscommunication<p>If I could dedicate my life to exploring one paradox, I would choose the relationship that rhetoric has to miscommunication.</p>
<p>Like other humans, I’ve been making sounds and hoping to be understood for as long as I can remember. Being understood is incredibly gratifying – it’s bound up in the intoxicating affair of external validation. Being misunderstood, however, ranges from merely irritating to completely horrifying. The worst experiences of miscommunication are akin to madness. Indeed, couldn’t we describe insanity as the self-fulfilling paranoia of being misunderstood?</p>
<p>At first blush, rhetoric might seem to pave the road to miscommunication; what could possibly be less effective than colorful or expressive language? Effective communication would seem to depend on the opposite of rhetoric. Wrong! In hinting at the possibility of miscommunication, rhetoric crucially reminds us of how important the meaningful conveyance of information actually is.</p>
<p>I’ve come to view miscommunication as a metaphysical kingdom, a realm that persists alongside the everyday highly functional discourses of exchange, self-expression, seduction, invention, story-telling and jurisprudence.</p>
<p>A taste of pure rhetoric puts us into contact with that other realm and keeps us sane.</p>
<p>My credo:</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>Rhetorical flourish is our best defense against the potential tyranny of miscommunication.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/tgr2toojeh93va.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/tgr2toojeh93va_small.png" alt="Screenshot 2014-01-11 00.29.00.png"></a><br>
<em>source: <a href="http://www.bmwusa.com/">http://www.bmwusa.com/</a></em></p>
<p>Consider the example above. It comes from an automobile owner’s manual*. It’s a thoroughly unnecessary bit of extravagance in a setting one would least likely expect it, an improbable place for poetry. <strong>The laws of physics cannot be repealed</strong>. Whether the private joke of translators or an earnest remark from technical writers, it is a fine example of rhetoric because it is so thoroughly superfluous and also terrifically entertaining. The bare message is that though a fancy technology can now prevent you from skidding, you must never forget that man and his contraptions can’t defy nature.</p>
<p>Would that communication technologies came with such a tidy warning.</p>
<p>Technology exerts exogenous pressure on us to rid communication of rhetoric. Technology dazzles us with the promise of thorough, exhaustive, perfect communication. Like a system that “recognizes unstable driving conditions,” systems of communication from morse code to Snapchat momentarily purge instability. Eventually, though, as we grow familiar with the medium, we become comfortable with the art it gives rise to.</p>
<p>In this light, rhetoric too is a law of physics.</p>
<p>*Manual comes from the Latin “manus” (hand) and then “manualis” (fit for being hand-held) and has clearly given us the word “handbook.” Needless to say, handbooks exist solely for doing or fixing. Their language skips the mind and the heart and flows straight to the hands. The handbook is a conversation between two unthinking machines.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/a-short-checklist-for-avoiding-mediocrity-in-the-gamefication-of-loyalty2013-12-01T12:12:51-08:002013-12-01T12:12:51-08:00A Short Checklist for Avoiding Mediocrity in the Gamefication of Loyalty<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/6mbjnvztpwyzw.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/6mbjnvztpwyzw_small.jpg" alt="Gamefication.jpg"></a><br>
<em>Artwork courtesy of <a href="http://www.gabrielschama.com/">Gabriel Schama</a></em></p>
<p>I’ve been a member of United’s Frequent Flier program since my father enrolled me in 1995. After nearly 20 years of collecting and redeeming miles for award travel, I recently became a Premier Silver member (the entry-level echelon of elite status, earned by actually flying 25,000 miles in a calendar year) for the first time.</p>
<p>Miles programs are oft-touted as the canonically well-constructed and successful loyalty game; my experience “winning” the game has taught me otherwise.</p>
<p><strong>CELEBRATE progress–duh!</strong></p>
<p>When I earned Premier Silver I received no email, no on-site megaphone, nothing to congratulate me on the accomplishment. I grew up watching my father flash a plastic card at check-in, and though I’ve been a Premier Silver member for a few weeks now, nothing has arrived in the mail for me. Perhaps they’ve discontinued the plastic shenanigans? Fine, but how about my first check-in after earning the status? It would be so easy for counter representatives or kiosk screens to congratulate me.</p>
<p><strong>COERCION can never be more obvious than the short term hedonic payout</strong></p>
<p>Leading up to my glorious admission to the club I found myself booking slightly more expensive tickets on United in order to reach the 25,000 qualifying miles in time. This is patently how the game works, but it doesn’t quite feel good because of the soupçon that I was, in effect, wasting money. I found myself verifying the United program rules, ascertaining the benefits of membership, etc. There are cheap, simple ways to make this experience better, such as a post-booking email reassuring me that I’ve made the right decision. <em>You’re almost there, fool!</em> would go a long way.</p>
<p><strong>WINNING can simply never be a worse experience than playing</strong></p>
<p>My single most important reason for playing the game is the prospect of a free upgrade to first class. Something for nothing is the sucker’s Shangri-La. A free 5th cup of coffee may be fungible with a permanent 20% discount, but the former is several times more attractive than the latter. So far, on United, I have not received a free upgrade, and thus I was having far more fun looking forward to indelible specialness than I’m actually having as a Premier Silver member.</p>
<p><strong>INTERMEDIATE SUCCESS cannot breed contempt for the game</strong></p>
<p>Before my last three flights I’ve squinted up at the screen near the gate only to discover that I’m hopelessly far down on the list of standby upgrades. I’ve never been higher than #7 and when queried the airline officials have told me that earlier spots go to the more frequent fliers. I’m so far from winning the next tier of status that I want to give up on the game right now. Does this pathetic thermometer seduce you in any way?<br>
<a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/dt5jje4vy2bbw.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/dt5jje4vy2bbw_small.png" alt="Screen Shot 2013-12-01 at 10.17.15 AM.png"></a></p>
<p>Of course I won’t stop playing, however, largely on account of the consolation prize, namely the continued accrual of reward miles through my linked credit card. But now there’s a bitter taste in my mouth that free travel simply won’t expunge…and I’m less loyal than I was beforehand.</p>
<p><strong>REWARDS can’t cannibalize one another</strong></p>
<p>So far I have enjoyed one small perk of having status: automatic assignment to boarding group 2, right after the really special people. But the most disappointing experience has been the following: in order to find out whether a free upgrade to first class would come my way I apparently have to wait at the gate until boarding is done. How dumb is this? I essentially sacrifice a sure thing (hassle-free boarding experience, the second-best reward) for a slim shot at the best reward (free upgrade).</p>
<p><strong>CONTINUED PLAY should have no substitutes</strong></p>
<p>During college I used to derive tremendous pleasure from charming counter representatives into giving me a free first class upgrade. The required badinage came naturally to me and though I often struck out I occasionally won. That game–the game of obtaining confidence–yielded superior results to the current one I’m playing. I suppose it was harder but now I’m liable to switch back to it as it was a lot more fun.</p>
<p>It seems like a relatively inexpensive proposition for a business like an airline to diversify it’s allocation of specialness and to make all frequent fliers feel like the <em>primus inter pares</em>. A bad game has too many winners; a truly awful game makes winners feel like losers.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/thoughts-on-over-thinking2013-11-25T22:35:57-08:002013-11-25T22:35:57-08:00Thoughts on "Over-Thinking" <p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/7patuuznlvwhsw.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/7patuuznlvwhsw_small.jpg" alt="about_img (1).jpg"></a><br>
Courtesy of <a href="http://www.gabrielschama.com/">Gabriel Schama</a></p>
<p>If momentarily granted dictatorial control over parlance, the first phrase I’d eradicate is “You’re over-thinking it.”</p>
<p>It’s a vile phrase. In most contexts it amounts to little more than a verbal tic, a way for lazy interlocutors to buy time. In some cases it’s actually pejorative and can be a form of bullying. By deploying this horrid bit of rhetoric you’re not telling people that they are inaccurate or irrational or misinformed, and you’re not arguing with a specific point or the premise of dispute, you’re simply accusing them of <em>adding</em> complexity. How dare you!</p>
<p>Unlike other verbal cruft which we bandy about with impunity, the continued use of “over-thinking” as an insult comes at a dear price. The chief reason is that it’s impossible to differentiate over-thinking from mere thinking, and thus hostility to one is by necessity hostility to the other.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the phrase is dismissive in a noxious way because it momentarily challenges another person’s openness to enlightenment. Is there a greater intellectual crime? You leave a movie and your date ventures out on an exegetical limb. He or she searches for evidence in support of truth claims, thumbing through disparate threads that require organization. Can you live with yourself for brushing aside another being’s curiosity? Are you prepared to cut short someone else’s process of stumbling from indeterminacy to clarity? Can you tolerate interfering with another human’s emergence from self-imposed immaturity?</p>
<p>If you don’t want to wake up in a world where someone else can arbitrarily pronounce your own happy cognition invalid, join me in abstaining from recourse to this sloppy locution.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/bob-galen-pious-reply2013-11-17T08:33:42-08:002013-11-17T08:33:42-08:00Bob Galen: A pious reply to his son's heresy<p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/75g5H7t.jpg?1" alt="flipchart"></p>
<p>Last week I shared some thoughts about how <a href="http://jpg.svbtle.com/tasks-are-oppressive">tasks can be oppressive</a>. My dear father, an inveterate list-maker and task-completer, emailed me this thoughtful reply.</p>
<p>Dear Jer,</p>
<p>You challenge the Task Model with a concise, rational and appealing argument. You ask, “isn’t life little more than the sum of the tasks you complete?” Further, you say, “tasks are pragmatic because they can be completed. And people clearly derive satisfaction from completion.” People aren’t the only ones.</p>
<p>If you came from an Abrahamic religion and have the Old Testament as your theoretical framework of life, you can’t help but notice, in the very beginning of this Holy Book, that according to Genesis, God had a list to work from and it was very clearly spelled out in terms of what would be done and in what order.</p>
<p>In fact, God derived so much satisfaction from completion of all the tasks that s/he called the final day Holy. Now if you follow this framework, you no doubt will recall that God said, “Let us make a being in our image, after our likeness, and let it have dominion…” Thus God created us in the divine image. So who are we to challenge this model? To make lists of tasks and complete them and derive satisfaction from their completion? This is embedded in our very DNA and divinely inspired!</p>
<p>All that said, I have to agree with your three elegant corollaries. Tasks not only feel oppressive, they are oppressive. The list most certainly breeds all sorts of counter productive neurotic behavior. It is actually worse than you can imagine! What to do to change this is a non-trivial task. For example, when I awoke this morning and had coffee, I reviewed my flip chart (see above) and the first item on the list for today was “reply to Jeremy”!</p>
<p>So there you have it, now what do we do?</p>
<p>Have a nice weekend,</p>
<p>Love,</p>
<p>Dad</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/tasks-are-oppressive2013-11-13T23:09:33-08:002013-11-13T23:09:33-08:00Stop thinking about your work in terms of tasks<p>I recently came across a work of art in my home that really helps visualize one of the risks that are run by breaking work down into discrete tasks:</p>
<p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/7R2w97Q.jpg?2" alt="glass"><br>
<strong>Emergen-C, Abandoned</strong></p>
<p>We’re always liable to be interrupted during the completion of tasks. Despite the noble work task management does to limit this liability, the risk of interruption never quite goes away.</p>
<p><strong>The Task Model</strong></p>
<p>The task model for conceiving of and discussing work makes a good deal of sense–it’s rooted in our most common vocabulary for discussing the past and our role in it. This may sound reductive, demeaning, unpalatable or even rude, but isn’t life little more than the sum of the tasks you complete?</p>
<p>Break down a week, day, or hour, and the only way you can really talk about it is in terms of what happens and what you achieved. You, the world you experience, and the stuff you want to do and get done for the portion of your life that you’re conscious. The template is basically “I want this to happen by that time and here’s my plan.” True for big plans and small plans alike.</p>
<p>Tasks are pragmatic because they can be completed. And people clearly derive satisfaction from completion. But tasks are oppressive because they can sometimes persist in theoretically begun or partially completed states. Is there any more irritating experience than passing by your kitchen sink and discovering a pathetic pile of powder at the bottom of a glass?</p>
<p><strong>The paradox of finding work more manageable when it’s not atomized</strong></p>
<p>What alternative is there to conceiving of work in terms of tasks? Try to train yourself to think of work as a non-partitive experience of your priorities. In other words, conceive of work as a flow, like electricity or water, and not as units or modules in sequence.</p>
<p>After spending your entire life building lists and prioritizing items on it, a day of non-partitioned work may be liberating. Despite what you’ve been trained, it may be the tasks and not the work that’s overwhelming.</p>
<p>I think there are at least three elegant corollaries here:</p>
<p><em>Less compulsion</em>. Tasks, like reducing your inbox, create the conditions of possibility for compulsive behavior. Tasks share attributes with one another and thus their successive completion forms a habit.*</p>
<p><em>No task abandonment</em>. This can’t exactly happen if you have a fundamentally non-task based conception of work. The glass containing Emergen-c power is always about to find the spout.</p>
<p><em>The death of multi-tasking</em>. What is multi-tasking anyhow? Aren’t we always doing this? ie, Are we ever doing just one thing? Or aren’t we never doing this? ie, Is it really ever possible to do more than one thing at once? Why do people like this concept?</p>
<p>Tasks feel oppressive because they are endless and they create the illusion that mastery is unattainable. The list, not the labor, is your enemy.</p>
<p>*Something similar is going on with today’s highly viral list-making online content producers. Their titles alone inspire clicks because, shit, there’s a list waiting for me and I can handle a list of ‘27 things people wish they told themselves / their parents / cats / twentysomethings.’</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/on-the-power-of-examples2013-10-20T14:05:35-07:002013-10-20T14:05:35-07:00On the power of examples<p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/JmoEpeX.jpg?1" alt="painted rock"></p>
<p>Damn this is some good signage, right? I took this picture on a bike ride in Lands End yesterday and I’ve been thinking a lot about it since then. There’s something incredibly efficient about the way it’s formulated.</p>
<p>There are of course several ways this sign could have been written, and I keep imagining the municipal conference room where some functionaries had to reject proposals until they came upon this winning formulation. Chief says “Alright everybody listen up, we really need to get the message across, people keeping dying out there on Painted Rock, it’s just so beautiful that they aren’t heeding our normal warnings.”</p>
<p>“Let’s spell it out in plain english,” ventures one cautious subordinate. “‘Severe Risk of Death’ will work perfectly, as always” he suggests.</p>
<p>“But the kids these days don’t believe in signs. And some of them are only enticed by risk,” replies the Chief. “We need to give the people a justification for our capricious decrees.”</p>
<p>“The problem is that the cliff has such a lovely name, Chief,” says another sycophant in the room. “We need to make the deterrent personal somehow.”</p>
<p>Indeed, it’s hard to read “People have fallen to their death from this point” without immediately considering that the very same could happen to you. Even without knowing who these people were or when they died, the imagery is powerful: numerous bodies falling, battered against jagged crags as they tumble to the sea below. This isn’t just death, it’s an <em>experience</em> of dying. In advertising something similar is going on with those graphic, gratuitous color pictures of various cancers on the exteriors of cigarette packs and the same is true when weight loss systems or balding cures sell you on John Doe’s individual results. “A” doesn’t merely do “B” but has literally, historically done “B” for “C.”</p>
<p><strong>Our Inner Aristocrat</strong></p>
<p>The problem is that people have this magical ability to believe in their own exceptional status. Consider the people who hopped the guard rail in my photograph. They read the sign and basically figured that though people have fallen to their death from Painted Rock, it won’t happen to them because they’re special or better or luckier or what have you. Even with a vivid rationale on offer, they have the temerity to think that the rules don’t apply to them.</p>
<p>Though the happiest people fight against and ultimately vanquish this narcissism, most people probably don’t. This is why the very best providers of hospitality and other services prey so capably on private fantasies of exceptionalism. It’s hard to turn down an opportunity for the world to confirm what you’ve always privately suspected about yourself.</p>
<p>The exception swallows the rule when everyone is unique and special, however. Pardon the prognostication, but after the epoch of customization (with its endless groveling about the “bespoke”) comes to an end I predict conformity will slowly obtain a special allure. When standing out will have lost its charisma, examples of fitting in will be the only believable ones. And when that day arrives, perhaps the Painted Rock sign might merely have to say “People agree the danger of visiting this point outweighs its beauty” to be effective.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/what-is-the-difference-between-sharing-and-selfexpression2013-10-07T10:22:00-07:002013-10-07T10:22:00-07:00What is the difference between sharing and self-expression?<p>People often use these two words interchangeably and it makes me rather nervous. I am uncertain they mean exactly the same thing, and I’m convinced it matters.*</p>
<p>Here are 4 propositions representing distinct options for modeling the relation between sharing and self-expression: A) Sharing is a subset of self-expression or B) Sharing is a superset of self-expression or C) All sharing is self-expression or D) No sharing is self-expression</p>
<p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ATR0OqK.png?1" alt="self-expression and sharing"></p>
<p>In <strong>Option A</strong> sharing is a subset of self-expression. Restated: all sharing is self-expression but not all self-expression is sharing. This is a pretty intuitive option because it pretty much makes anything I say or express or convey a form of self-expression. This is a self-flattering view, but it unattractively waters down the meaning of self-expression.</p>
<p>For example, when I share news about the government shutdown (a mere fact in the world), does it really matter that I’m the one sharing it with you?</p>
<p>One might counter with the claim that in the context of my complete freedom to share anything I choose, it does matter that I’ve chosen one fact in the world over another. I have <em>selected</em> to share certain facts and not others with you, which of course could say something about me. It <em>could</em> say something about me, but it need not necessarily. Thus Option A is quite weak.</p>
<p><strong>Option B</strong>, where sharing is a superset of self-expression, could be restated as “all self-expression is sharing but not all sharing is self-expression.” This is quite satisfying if you view self-expression as a special set of personal conveyance or communication. In this view, self-expression consists of the cases where what I’m expressing truly represents me, my self, in a way that’s more meaningful than ordinary/bland/unidentifiable statements. People like this view because it dignifies and elevates their unique experiences of the world, their opinions, beliefs, perspectives, memories, fictions, and fantasies. All they need to do is leave my mind and they become atomic units that could only have come from me.</p>
<p>But what if I were to throw a rock through my neighbor’s window because her music is too loud? This could easily be construed as self-expression but what exactly would I be sharing, my opinion that her music is too loud or my opinion that I don’t share her taste? All ambiguous remarks, to say nothing of irony, seem to be examples of self-expression that may not constitute successful sharing. And of course we have a whole set of quite common and satisfying experiences of self-expression that one enjoys in solitude. Consider the writing of a diary or the preparation of a meal that one consumes alone. Option B clearly has its own shortcomings.</p>
<p>This brings us to <strong>Option C</strong> where there’s complete coincidence of sharing and self-expression, a model in which all sharing is self-expression. This could at first seem like a compelling picture of things but it would debase self-expression without rewarding us in any way. Don’t we intuitively want self-expression to be something other than the mere exchanges, something more than generic transactions? I think we could live with this model briefly but it would trouble us over time.</p>
<p><strong>Option D</strong> would be the model in which no sharing is self-expression, the complete non-coincidence of the two. At first this is an odd, unsettling model because it’s challenging to make sense of self-expression entirely outside the context of sharing. There’s something elegant, though, in thinking of self-expression as independent from the messy chaos of sharing. But take art or argument or criticism and remove the recipient–what really remains? Can we really pretend that sharing presupposes an audience and self-expression doesn’t? Is sharing always dialogical where self-expression is monological?</p>
<p>At this point you probably have concluded that there’s an easy way out of all this. Why can’t we just live with the idea of a classic Venn diagram, where some sharing would be independent of self-expression and vice-versa? Where the two overlap would be the cases where something magical happens, and quite simply, whatever is being shared also expresses something fundamental about a self out there somewhere.</p>
<p>I detest this way out, however. I think it’s exactly the type of loathsome neglect that lands us in the place we’ve found ourselves, sloppily using words as if they’re synonyms that thoroughly index the same concept. What’s worse we remain vulnerable to a subtle exploitation, which is that we can be convinced over time that what we’re sharing truly represents us when we’re not quite sure we want this to be the case. More problematically, we could be convinced that what we think represents us is merely ‘a fact in the world’ that could have been shared by anyone.</p>
<p>I’d like to share that attempting to differentiate sharing and self-expression makes me far more nervous than my experience of people using them interchangeably. And if I can be permitted a final self-indulgence, I’d like to suggest that our contemporary commitment to high frequency self-expression may in fact stem from the crisis that this intractable problem gives rise to.</p>
<p>*I should state outright that this post is not the claptrap of a persnickety opponent of laissez-faire linguistics, i.e. I’m not just concerned about proper usage. What concerns me is distinguishing sharing from self-expression conceptually.</p>
tag:jpg.svbtle.com,2014:Post/living-with-distraction2013-09-23T23:20:22-07:002013-09-23T23:20:22-07:00Living with distraction: a rejoinder to Louis C.K.<p><img src="http://cdn.teamcococdn.com/assets/image/640x357/frame:1/valign:top/sig:12555ffc75aca0351e46f3380e69ea93/0466_guest_1_4-523bb7f7af9c4.jpeg" alt="none"><br>
<em>source: Teamcoco.com</em></p>
<p>Over the last few days I’ve rewatched <a href="http://teamcoco.com/video/louis-ck-springsteen-cell-phone">Louis C.K.‘s Conan clip</a> several times and talked of it with anyone who will listen. His point of departure is the case for denying his children smartphones, but he soon dwells on a much more disturbing subject, namely the threat that continuous connectivity poses for selfhood.</p>
<p>The bit is funny because, like pretty much all good standup, it is at once patently obvious and painfully true: solitude is a challenging experience and we’re hopeless at turning down an opportunity to feel part of the human community. Even if the gesture of inclusion is shallow and short-lived, like a text message, we spring for it instinctively.</p>
<p>What’s really interesting here (and probably the source of the routine’s comic weight) is that he’s willing to go out and admit that a text message from a friend momentarily resolves the existential anxiety he refers to as “that thing, that forever empty.” It’s an absurd proposition, really, but of course there’s some uncontroversial truth to it: when we’re even mildly entertained it’s hard to be sad; when stimulated it’s hard to be bored; when communicating with other people it’s hard to feel alone.</p>
<p>The somber note of his routine is the suggestion that we’re worse off for being able to run from solitude so easily. He implies that empathy will be harder to develop. I have to disagree, at least in one very important respect. </p>
<p><strong>Mental discipline is the great differentiator of our era</strong></p>
<p>The fact that distraction is increasingly inexpensive shouldn’t be seen as ineluctably tragic; instead we should think of the onslaught of opportunities for diversion as offering us a fundamentally new form of fitness.* </p>
<p>Armchair prognostication is a hazardous endeavor, but here goes nothing. If Louis’ kids and their peers grow up inundated with unconscionable possibilities of diversion, won’t they have even more respect for the discipline that overcomes them? Won’t they value even more highly than we do the will power needed to establish a life that doesn’t merely consist of diversion? Won’t all their accomplishments, their inventions and creations and new forms of expressions, won’t they seem all the more prodigious because they were achieved despite the distractions? Is this ever not the case in history?</p>
<p>Selfhood is always already about overcoming distractions; the chief distraction for the self has always been society. A pocket sized always-on communication device is a privilege. It raises the bar. It’s harder than ever to know oneself and harder than ever to find the time and force of will to keep a thoughtful journal or read a difficult book. But whenever you actually do succeed, doesn’t it feel good?</p>
<p>*The evolutionary undertone here is intended. Though it would be hard to conceive of reproductive advantage through mental discipline alone, its presence to varying degrees could easily beget most or all of the sexual selection criteria of the future.</p>